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THE

MEDIAEVAL STAGE

E. K. CHAMBERS

VOLUME I

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON

BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA

CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA

KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG

BR4, N

129 J96.-;

99«M5?

\o>b

FIRST EDITION I9O3

REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN

BY LOWE & BRYDONE, PRINTERS, LTD., LONDON

FROM SHEETS OF THE FIRST EDITION

1925, I948, I954, 1963

TO N. C.

PREFACE

Some years ago I was thinking of a little book, which now
may or may not ever get itself finished, about Shakespeare
and the conditions, literary and dramatic, under which Shake-
speare wrote. My proper task would have begun with the
middle of the sixteenth century. But it seemed natural to
put first some short account of the origins of play-acting in
England and of its development during the Middle Ages.
Unfortunately it soon became apparent that the basis for
such a narrative was wanting. The history of the mediaeval
theatre had never, from an English point of view, been
written. The initial chapter of Collier's Annals of the Stage
is even less adequate than is usual with this slovenly and
dishonest antiquary, tt is with some satisfaction that, in
spite of the barrier set up by an incorrect reference, I have
resolved one dramatic representation elaborately described
by Collier into a soteltie or sweetmeat. More scholarly
writers, such as Dr. A. W. Ward, while dealing excellently
with the mediaeval drama as literature, have shown themselves
but little curious about the social and economic facts upon
which the mediaeval drama rested. Yet from a study of such
facts, I am sure, any literary history, which does not confine
itself solely to the analysis of genius, must make a start.

An attempt of my own to fill the gap has grown into these
two volumes, which have, I fear, been unduly swelled by the
inclusion of new interests as, from time to time, they took
hold upon me ; an interest, for example, in the light-hearted
and coloured life of those poverelli of letters, the minstrel
folk ; a very deep interest in the track across the ages of
certain customs and symbols of rural gaiety which bear with
them the inheritance of a remote and ancestral heathenism.
I can only hope that this disproportionate treatment of parts
has not wholly destroyed the unity of purpose at which, after
all, I aimed. If I may venture to define for myself the
formula of my work, I would say that it endeavours to state

vi PREFACE

and explain the pre-existing conditions which, by the latter
half of the sixteenth century, made the great Shakespearean
stage possible. The story is one of a sudden dissolution and
a slow upbuilding. I have arranged the material in four Books.
The First Book shows how the organization of the Graeco-
Roman theatre broke down before the onslaught of Christianity
and the indifference of barbarism, and how the actors became
wandering minstrels, merging with the gleemen of their
Teutonic conquerors, entertaining all classes of mediaeval
society with spectacula in which the dramatic element was of
the slightest, and in the end, after long endurance, coming to
a practical compromise with the hostility of the Church. In
the Second Book I pass to spectacula of another type, which
also had to struggle against ecclesiastical disfavour, and
which also made their ultimate peace with all but the most
austere forms of the dominant religion. These are the ludi
of the village feasts, bearing witness, not only to their origin
in heathen ritual, but also, by their constant tendency to break
out into primitive forms of drama, to the deep-rooted mimetic
instinct of the folk. The Third Book is a study of the process
by which the Church itself, through the introduction of
dramatic elements into its liturgy, came to make its own
appeal to this same mimetic instinct ; and of that by which,
from such beginnings, grew up the great popular religious
drama of the miracle-plays, with its offshoots in the moralities
and the dramatic pageants. The Fourth and final Book deals
summarily with the transformation of the mediaeval stage, on
the literary side under the influence of humanism, on the
social and economic side by the emergence from amongst
the ruins of minstrelsy of a new class of professional players,
in whose hands the theatre was destined to recover a stable
organization upon lines which had been departed from since
the days of Tertullian.

I am very conscious of the manifold imperfections of these
volumes. They are the work, not of a professed student, but
of one who only plays at scholarship in the rare intervals of a
busy administrative life. They owe much to the long-suffering
officials of the British Museum and the London Library, and
more recently to the aid and encouragement of the Delegates

PREFACE vii

of the Clarendon Press and their accomplished staff. The
literary side of the mediaeval drama, about which much
remains to be said, I have almost wholly neglected. I shall
not, I hope, be accused of attaching too much importance in
the first volume to the vague and uncertain results of folk-lore

research. One cannot be always giving expression to the
minuter shades of probability. But in any investigation
the validity of the inferences must be relative to the nature
of the subject-matter; and, whether I qualify it in words or
not, I do not, of course, make a statement about the intention,
say, of primitive sacrifice, with the same confidence which
attaches to one about matters of historic record. The burden
of my notes and appendices sometimes appears to me
intolerable. My excuse is that I wanted to collect, once for
all, as many facts with as precise references as possible.
These may, perhaps, have a value independent of any con-
clusions which I have founded upon them. And even now
I do not suppose that I have been either exhaustive or accurate.
The remorseless ideal of the historian's duties laid down in the
Introduction aux Jitndcs Historiqnes of MM. Langlois and
Seignobos floats before me like an accusing spirit. I know
how very far lam from having reached that austere standard
of scientific completeness. To begin with, I had not the
necessary training. Oxford, my most kindly nurse, maintained
in my day no Jicole des Chartes, and I had to discover the
rules of method as I went along. But the greater difficulty has
been the want of leisure and the spacious life. Shades of Duke
Humphrey's library, how often, as I jostled for my turn at the
crowded catalogue-shelves of the British Museum, have I not
envied those whose lot it is to tread your ample corridors and
to bend over your yellowing folios ! Amongst such happy
scholars, the canons of Clio may claim implicit obedience.
A silent company, they ' class ' their documents and ' try '
their sources from morn to eve, disturbed in the pleasant ways
of research only by the green flicker of leaves in the Exeter
garden, or by the statutory inconvenience of a terminal lec-
ture.—

' Tanagra ! think not I forget ! '

E. K. C.

London, May, 1903.

CONTENTS

Volume I

Preface

List of Authorities

page
v

xiii

BOOK I. MINSTRELSY

CHAP
I.

The Fall of the Theatres
II. Mimus and Sc6p .

III. The Minstrel Life .

IV. The Minstrel Repertory .

23
42

BOOK II. FOLK DRAMA

V. The Religion of the Folk
VI. Village Festivals
VII. Festival Play .
VIII. The May-Game .
IX. The Sword-Dance
X. The Mummers' Play .
XL The Beginning of Winter
XII. New Year Customs .

XIII. The Feast of Fools.

XIV. The Feast of Fools {continued)
XV. The Boy Bishop

XVI. Guild Fools and Court Fools

XVII. Masks and Misrule .

89
116
146
160
182
205
228
249
274
301
336
372
39o

Volume II

BOOK III. RELIGIOUS DRAMA

XVIII. Liturgical Plays .....

XIX. . Liturgical Plays {continued) .

XX. The Secularization of the Plays .

XXI. Guild Plays and Parish Plays
XXII. Guild Plays and Parish Plays {continued)
XXIII. Moralities, Puppet-Plays, and Pageants

106

124

149

CONTENTS

BOOK IV. THE INTERLUDE

CHAP.

XXIV. Players of Interludes .
XXV. Humanism and Mediaevalism

page
179
199

APPENDICES

A. The Tribunus Voluptatum .

B. TOTA IOCULATORUM ScENA

C. Court Minstrelsy in 1306 .

D. The Minstrel Hierarchy

E. Extracts from Account Books

I. Durham Priory >
II. Maxstoke Priory

III. Thetford Priory ....

IV. Winchester College
V. Magdalen College, Oxford .

VI. Shrewsbury Corporation
VII. The Howards of Stoke-by-Nayland, Essex
VIII. The English Court .

F. Minstrel Guilds .....

G. Thomas de Cabham ....
H. Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth

I. A Squire Minstrel

II. The Coventry Hock-Tuesday Show
I. The Indian Village Feast .
J. Sword-Dances .....

I. Sweden (sixteenth century).

II. Shetland (eighteenth century)
K. The Lutterworth St. George Play .
L. The Prose of the Ass ....
M. The Boy Bishop .....
I. The Sarum Office

II. The York Computus .
N. Winter Prohibitions ....
O. The Regularis Concordia of St. Ethelwold
P. The Durham Sepulchrum
Q. The Sarum Sepulchrum
R. The Dublin Quem Quaeritis

229
230

234
238
240
240
244

245
246
248
250

255
256

258
262
263
263
264
266
270
270
271
276
279
282
282
287
290
306
310
312
315

CONTENTS

A PP.

S. The Aurea Missa of Tournai
T. Subjects of the Cyclical Miracles
U. Interludium de Clerico et Puella
V. Terentius et Delusor ....
W. Representations of Mediaeval Plays .
X. Texts of Mediaeval Plays and Interludes
I. Miracle-Plays ....
II. Popular Moralities

III. Tudor Makers of Interludes .

IV. List of Early Tudor Interludes .

SUBJECT INDEX

PAGE
318
321

324
326

329

407
407

436

443
453

462

LIST OF AUTHORITIES

[General Bibliographical Note. I mention here only a few works of
wide range, which may be taken as authorities throughout these two
volumes. Others, more limited in their scope, are named in the
preliminary, notes to the sections of the book on whose subject-matter
they bear. — An admirable general history of the modern drama is
W. Creizenach's still incomplete Geschichte des neueren Dramas (Band i,
Mittelalter und Friihrenaissance, 1893; Bande ii, iii, Renaissance und
Reformation,' 1901-3). R. Prolss, Geschichte des neueren Dramas
(188 1-3), is slighter. The earlier work of J. L. Klein, Geschichte des
Dramas (13 vols. 1865-76), is diffuse, inconvenient, and now partly
obsolete. A valuable study is expected from J. M. Manly in vol. iii
of his Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, of which two
volumes, containing selected texts, appeared in 1897. C. Hastings,
Le TJie'dtre francais et anglais (1900, Eng. trans. 1901), is a
compilation of little merit. — Prof. Creizenach may be supplemented
for Germany by R. Froning, Das Drama des Mittelalters (1891). For
France there are the exhaustive and excellent volumes of L. Petit de
Julleville's Histoire du Thidtre en France au Moyen Age (Les Mysteres,
1880; Les Com/diens en France au Moyen Age, 1885; La Com/die el
les Mceurs en France au Moyen Age, 1886; Repertoire du Theatre
comique au Moyen Age, 1886). G. Bapst, Essai sur T Histoire du
Theatre (1893), adds some useful material on the history of the stage.
For Italy A. d' Ancona, Origini del Teatro italiano (2nd ed., 1891), is
also excellent. — The best English book is A. W. Ward's History of
English Dramatic Literature to the death of Queen Anne (2nd ed.,
1899). J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry (new ed.,
1879), is full of matter, but, for various reasons, not wholly trust-
worthy. J. J. Jusserand, Le Thidtre en Angleterre (2nd ed., 1881),
J. A. Symonds, Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama
(1884), and G. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies (1903),
are of value. Texts will be found in Manly's and Gayley's books,
and in A. W. Pollard, English Miracle Plays, Moralities and
Interludes (3rd ed., 1898); W. C. Hazlitt, Dodsley's Old Plays
(15 vols. 1874-6); A. Brandl, Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in
England (1898). F. H. Stoddard, References for Students of Miracle
Plays and Mysteries (1887), and K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey,
English Drama; a Working Basis (1896), are rough attempts at

xiv LIST OF AUTHORITIES

bibliographies. — In addition the drama of course finds treatment in
the general histories of literature. The best are: for Germany,
R. Kogel, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgange des
Mittelalters (1894-7, a fragment); K. Godeke, Grundriss zur
Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung aus den Quellen (2nd ed., 1884-
1900); W. Scherer, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur (8th ed.,
1899): for France, L. Petit de Julleville (editor), Histoire de la
Langue el de la Litte'rature francaises (1 896-1 900); G. Paris., La
Litter ature francaise au Moyen Age (2nd ed., 1890): for Italy,
A. Gaspary, Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur (1884—9, Eng.
transl. 1901): for England, T. Warton, History of English Poetry
(ed W. C. Hazlitt, 1871); B. Ten Brink, History of English
Literature (Eng. trans. 1893-6); J. J. Jusserand, Literary History
of the English People (vol. i. 1895); W. J. Courthope, History of
English Poetry (vols, i, ii. 1895-7); G. Saintsbury, Short History of
English Literature (1898), and, especially for bibliography, G. Korting,
Grundriss der Geschichte der englischen Litteratur (3rd ed., 1899).
The Periods of European Literature, edited by Prof. Saintsbury,
especially G. Gregory Smith, The Transition Period (1900), and the
two great Grundrisse, H. Paul, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie
(2nd ed., 1896-1903), and G. Grober, Grundriss der romanischen
Philologie (1 888-1 903), should also be consulted. — The beginnings
of the mediaeval drama are closely bound up with liturgy, and the
nature of the liturgical books referred to is explained by W. Maskell,
A Dissertation upon the Ancient Service-Books of the Church of
England (in Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 2nd ed., 1882,
vol. iii) ; H. B. Swete, Church Services and Service-Books before the
Reformation (1896); Procter-Frere, New History of the Book of
Common Prayer (1901). The beginnings of Catholic ritual are
studied by L. Duchesne, Origines du Culte chrtiien (3rd ed., 1902,
Eng. trans. 1903), and its mediaeval forms described by D. Rock,
The Church of our Fathers (1849-53), an<3 J- D. Chambers, Divine
Worship in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (1877).
The following list of books is mainly intended to elucidate the
references in the footnotes, and has no claim to bibliographical
completeness or accuracy. I have included the titles of a few German
and French dissertations of which I have not been able to make use.]

Aberdeen Records. Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of

Aberdeen. Edited by J. Stuart. 2 vols. 1844-8. [Spalding Club, xii, xix.]

Acta SS. Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, quas collegit

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xv

I. Bollandus. Operam continuavit G. Henschenius [et alii], 1734-1894.
[In progress.]

Ahn. English Mysteries and Miracle Plays. By Dr. Ahn. Trier,
1867. [Not consulted.]
Alcuin. See Dummler.

Allard. Julien l'Apostat. Par P. Allard. 3 vols. 1900-3.
Allen. The Evolution of the Idea of God : an Enquiry into the
Origins of Religion. By Grant Allen, 1897.

Alt. Theater und Kirche in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhaltniss. Von
H. Alt, 1846.

Anal. Hymn. Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi. Ediderunt C. Blume et
G. M. Dreves. 57 parts, 1 886-1901. [In progress.]

Ancona. Origini del Teatro italiano. Per A. d'Ancona, 2nd ed.
2 vols. 1 891.

Ancona, Sacr. Rappr. Sacre Rappresentazioni dei secoli xiv, xv e xvi,
raccolte e illustrate per cura di A. d'Ancona, 1872.

Anglia. Anglia : Zeitschrift fur englische Philologie. 24 vols. 1878-
1903. [In progress.]

Ann. Arch. Annales Archeologiques, dirige"es par Didron aine". 28
vols. 1844-81.

Antiquarian Repertory. The Antiquarian Repertory : A Miscellaneous
assemblage of Topography, History, Biography, Customs and Manners.
Compiled by F. Grose and T. Astle. 2nd ed. 4 vols. 1807.

Arbois de Jubainville, Civ. Celt. La Civilisation des Celtes et celle
de PEpope'e homerique. Par H. d' Arbois de Jubainville, 1899. [Vol. vi
of Cours de litterature celtiyue.]

Arbois de Jubainville, Cyd. Myth. Le Cycle mythologique irlandais
et la Mythologie celtique. Par H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, 1884. [Vol. ii
of same.]

Archaeologia. Archaeologia : or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to
Antiquity. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London. 57 vols.
1770-1901. [In progress.]

Arnold. The Customs of London, otherwise Arnold's Chronicle.
Edited by F. Douce, 181 1.

Ashton. A Righte Merrie Christmasse ! ! ! By J. Ashton, n. d.
Bahlmann, Em. Die Erneuerer des antiken Dramas und ihre
ersten dramatischen Versuche : 13 14-1478. Von P. Bahlmann, 1896.

Bahlmann, L. D. Die lateinischen Dramen von Wimpheling's
Stylpho bis zur Mitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts : 1480-1550. Von
P. Bahlmann, 1893.

Bale. Scriptorum illustrium maioris Britanniae, quam nunc Angliam
et Scotiam vocant, Catalogus. Autore Ioanne Baleo Sudouolgio Anglo.
2 vols. Basileae, Oporinus, 1557-9. [Enlarged from the edition in one
vol. of 1548.]

Bale, Index. Index Britanniae Scriptorum quos ex variis bibliothecis
non parvo labore collegit Ioannes Baleus. Edited by R. L. Poole and

xvi LIST OF AUTHORITIES

M. Bateson, 1902. [Anecdota Oxoniensia, Mediaeval and Modern
Series, ix, from a MS. compiled 1 549-1 5 57.]

Bapst. Essai sur 1'Histoire du Theatre. Par G. Bapst, 1893.

Barbazan-M£on. Fabliaux et Contes des Poetes francois des xi, xii,
xiii, xiv et xv siecles. Publics par E. Barbazan. Nouvelle e'ditibn, par
M. Me"on. 4 vols. 1808.

Barrett. Riding Skimmington and Riding the Stang. By C. R. B.
Barrett, 1895. [Jotirnal of British Archaeological Association, N. S.
vol. i.]

Barthelemy. Rational ou Manuel des divins Offices de Guillaume
Durand, Eveque de Mende au treizieme siecle. Traduit par M. C.
Barthelemy. 5 vols. 1854.

Bartsch. Altfranzbsische Romanzen und Pastourellen. Par K.
Bartsch, 1870.

Bates. The English Religious Drama. By K. L. Bates, 1893.

Bates-Godfrey. English Drama: a Working Basis. By K. L.
Bates and L. B. Godfrey, 1896.

Bede, D. T. R. Venerabilis Bedae Opera quae Supersunt Omnia.
Edidit J. A. Giles. 12 vols. 1843-4. [The De Temporum Rations forms
part of vol. vi.]

Bede, E. H. See Plummer.

B£dier. Les Fabliaux. Etudes de Literature populaire et d'Histoire
litteraire du Moyen Age. Par J. Be'dier, 2nd ed. 1895.

Belethus. Rationale Divinorum Officiorum Auctore Joanne Beletho
Theologo Parisiensi, 1855. Un P- L. ccii.]

Bell. Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of
England. Edited by R. Bell, 1857.

Berenger-F£raud. Superstitions et Survivances e'tudides au point
de vue de leur Origine et de leurs Transformations. Par L. J. B.
Berenger-Fdraud. 4 vols. 1896. ,

Bernhard. Recherches sur 1'Histoire de la Corporation des Mend-
triers ou Joueurs d'Instruments de la Ville de Paris. Par B. Bernhard.
\_Bibl. de PEcole des Charles, iii. 377, iv. 525, v. 254, 339.]

Bertrand. Nos Origines : iv. La Religion des Gaulois ; Les Druides
et le Druidisme. Par A. Bertrand, 1897.

Bibl. des Chartes. Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes. Revue
d'Erudition consacrde specialement a l'dtude du Moyen Age. [I quote
the numbers of the annual volumes, without regard to the Se'ries.]

Bingham. The Works of Joseph Bingham. Edited by R. Bingham.
New ed. 10 vols.

Blomefield. An Essay towards a Topographical History of the
County of Norfolk. By F. Blomefield. 2nd ed. 11 vols. 1805-10.

Bohck. Die Anfange des englischen Dramas. Von Dr. Bdhck, 1890.
[Not consulted.]

Bolton. The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children. By H. C. Bolton,
1888.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xvii

BORETIUS. Capitularia Regum Francorum. Ediderunt A. Boretius et
V. Krause. 2 vols. 1883-7. [M. G. H. Leges, Sectio ii.]

Bourquelot. Office de la Fete des Fous. Public par F. Bourquelot,
1858. [Bulletin de la Socie'te' arche'ologique de Sens, vol. vi. Not con-
sulted at first hand.]

Bower. The Elevation and Procession of the Ceri at Gubbio. By
H. M. Bower, 1897. [F. L. S.]

Brand. Observations on Popular Antiquities, chiefly illustrating the
Origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions. By
J. Brand. Enlarged by Sir H. Ellis. 3 vols. 1 84 1-2.

Brand-Hazlitt. Observations on Popular Antiquities. By J. Brand.
Edited with additions by W. C. Hazlitt. 3 vols. 1870.

Brandl. Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare.
Ein Erganzungsband zu Dodsley's Old English Plays. Herausgegeben
von A. Brandl, 1898. [Quellen und Forschungen, Ixxx.]

Brewer. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of
Henry VIII. Arranged and catalogued by J. S. Brewer [and afterwards
J. Gairdner and R. H. Brodie]. 18 vols. 1862-1902. [Calendars of State
Papers^

Brooke. The History of Early English Literature : being the History
of English Poetry to the Accession of King Alfred. By S. A. Brooke.
2 vols. 1892.

Brooke, Eng. Lit. English Literature from the Beginning to the
Norman Conquest. By S. A. Brooke, 1898.

Brotanek. Die englischen Maskenspiele. Von R. Brotanek, 1902.
[ Wiener Beitrdge zur englischen Philologie, xv.]

Brown. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English
Affairs, in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in other Libraries
of North Italy. Edited by H. F. Brown and R. Brown. 10 vols. 1864-
1900.

Brylinger. Comoediae et Tragoediae aliquot ex Novo et Vetere
Testamento desumptae. Basileae, Brylinger, 1540.

Burchardus. Burchardi Wormaciencis Ecclesiae Episcopi Decre-
torum Libri xx, 1853. [In P. L. cxl.]

Burne-Jackson. Shropshire Folk-lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings.
Edited by C. S. Burne, from the collections of G. F. Jackson, 1883.

Burnet. A History of the Reformation of the Church of England.
By G. Burnet. Edited by N. Pocock. 7 vols. 1865.

BURTON. Rushbearing. By A. Burton, 1891.

BURY-GlBBON. See GIBBON.

Campbell. Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, from
documents in the Public Record Office. By W. Campbell. 2 vols. 1873-7.
[R. S. lx.]

Canel. Recherches historiques sur les Fous des Rois de France.
Par A. Canel, 1873.

Captain Cox. See LANEHAM.

CHAMBERS. I h

xviii LIST OF AUTHORITIES

Carmina Burana. See Schmeller.

Caspari. Eine Augustin falschlich beilegte Homilia de Sacrilegiis.
Herausgegeben von C. P. Caspari, 1886. [Gesellschaft der Wissen-
schaften zu Christiania.~\

CASSIODORUS. Cassiodori Senatoris Variae. Recensuit Theodorus
Mommsen, 1894. [M. G. H. Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. xii.]

Catholicon Anglicum. Catholicon Anglicum : an English-Latin Word-
book (1483). Edited by S. J. Herrtage, 1881. [C. S. N. S. xxx.]

Cavendish. The Life of Cardinal Wolsey. By J. Cavendish. Edited
by S. W. Singer. 2 vols. 1825.

Chambers. Divine Worship in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Cen-
turies, contrasted with the Nineteenth. By J. D. Chambers, 1877.

CHAMPOLLION-FlGEAC. See HlLARIUS.

Chappell. Old English Popular Music. By W. Chappell. A new
edition by H. E. Wooldridge. 2 vols. 1893.

C. H. B. Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. Editio emendatior,
consilio B. G. Niebuhrii instituta, 1828-97.

Cherest. Nouvelles Recherches sur la Fete des Innocents et la Fete
des Fous. Par A. Cherest, 1853. [Bulletin de la Socie'te' des Sciences de
V Yonne, vol. vii.]

Child. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Edited by F. J.
Child. 10 vols. 1882-98.

Christinas Prince. See HlGGS.

C.I. C. Corpus Iuris Civilis. Editio altera, 1877—95. [Vol. i contains
the Insliluliones, ed. P. Krueger, and the Digesta, ed. Th. Mommsen ;
vol. ii the Codex lustiniani, ed. P. Krueger ; vol. iii the Novellae
lustiniani, ed. Schoell and Kroll.]

C. I. Can. Corpus Iuris Canonici. Editio Lipsiensis secunda : post
A. L. Richter curas . . . instruxit A. Friedberg. 2 vols. 1879-81. [Con-
tains the Decretum of Gratian (I-1139), the Decretales of Gregory IX
(1234), the Liber Sexlus of Boniface VIII (1298), the Decretales of Cle-
ment V and John XXII (1317), and the Extravagantes (down to 1484).]

Civis. Minutes, collected from the ancient Records and Accounts in
the Chamber of Canterbury. [By C. R. Bunce or W. Welfitt. These
documents, bound in B. M. under press-mark 10,358, h. i., appear to be
reprints or proof-sheets of articles, signed Civis, in the Kentish Chronicle
for 1 801-2.]

Clarke. The Miracle Play in England, an account of the Early
Religious Drama. By S. W. Clarke, n. d.

Cl£dat. Le Theatre en France au Moyen Age. Par L. Cledat, 1896.
[Classiques Populaires.]

Clement. Histoire ge'ne'rale de la Musique religieuse. Par F.
Clement, i860.

Clement-H£mery. Histoire des Fetes civiles et religieuses du D6-
partement du Nord. Par Mme Clement (ne'e H^mery), 1832.

Cloetta. Beitrage zur Litteraturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xix

Renaissance. Von W. Cloetta. i. Komodie und Tragddie im Mittel-
alter, 1890. ii. Die Anfange der Renaissancetragodie, 1S92.

Cod. Th. Codex Theodosianus. Edidit G. Haenel, 1844. [Corpus
fun's Romani Ante-Iustiniani, vol. ii.]

Collier. The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of
Shakespeare : and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration. By J. P.
Collier. New ed. 1879.

Collier, Five Plays. Five Miracle Plays, or Scriptural Dramas.
Edited by J. P. Collier, 1836.

Collier, P. J. Punch and Judy, with illustrations by G. Cruikshank.
Accompanied by the Dialogue of the Puppet-Show, an account of its
Origin, and of Puppet-Plays in England. [By J. P. Collier.] 5th ed. 1870.

Convbeare. The History of Christmas. By F. C. Conybeare, 1899
[ Journal of American Theology, vol. iii.]

Conybeare, Key of Truth. The Key of Truth : a Manual of the
Paulician Church. Edited and translated by F. C. Conybeare, 1898.

CORTET. Essai sur les Fetes religieuses, et les Traditions popul'aires
qui s'y rattachent. Par E. Cortet, 1867.

Cotgrave. A French-English Dictionary, with another in English
and French. By R. Cotgrave, 1650.

County Folk-Lore. Examples of printed Folk-Lore. Vol. i (Glouces-
tershire, Suffolk, Leicestershire, and Rutland), 1S92-5. Vol. ii (North
Riding of Yorkshire, York, and the Ainsty), 1901. [F. L. S.]

COURTHOPE. A History of English Poetry. By W. J. Courthope.
Vols, i, ii. 1895-7. [In progress.]

Coussemaker. Drames liturgiques du Moyen Age. Par E. de
Coussemaker, i860.

Coussemaker, Harm. Histoire de l'Harmonie au Moyen Age. Par
E. de Coussemaker, 1852.

Cox. Introduction to Folk-Lore. By M. R. Cox. 2nd ed. 1897.

C. P. B. Corpus Poeticum Boreale : the Poetry of the Old Northern
Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. Edited by
G. Vigfusson and F. Y. Powell. 2 vols. 1883.

Creizenach. Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Von W. Creizenach.
Vols i — iii , 1893-1903. [In progress.]

Crowest. The Story of British Music, from the Earliest Times to
the Tudor Period. By F. J. Crowest, 1896.

C. S. Camden Society, now incorporated with the Royal Historical
Society.

C. S. E. L. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Editum
consilio Academiae Litterarum Caesareae Vindobonensis. 41 vols. 1866-
I900. [In progress.]

Cumont. Textes et Monuments figures relatifs aux Mysteres de
Mithra. Par F. Cumont. 2 vols. 1896-9.

Cunliffe. The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy. An
Essay by J. W. Cunliffe, 1893. [Manchester dissertation.]

' b3

xx LIST OF AUTHORITIES

Cunningham. Extracts from the Accounts of Revels at Court in the
Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I. By P. Cunningham, 1842.
[Shakespeare Society.]

Cushman. The Devil and the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature
before Shakespeare. By L. W. Cushman, 1900. [Studien zur englischen
Philologie, vi.]

Cutts. Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages in England.
By E. L. Cutts, 1898.

DankA Die Feier des Osterfestes. Von J. Dank6, 1872. [Not
consulted.]

Dank6, Hymn. Vetus Hymnarium Ecclesiasticum Hungariae. Edidit
J. Danko, 1893.

David. Etudes historiques sur la Podsie et la Musique dans la Cambrie.
Par E. David, 1884.

Davidson. Studies in the English Mystery Plays. By C. Davidson,
1892. [Yale dissertation, in Transactions of Connecticut Academy, ix. 1.]

Davies. Extracts from the Municipal Records of the City of York
during the Reigns of Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III. By
R. Davies, 1843.

Dawson. Christmas : Its Origin and Associations. By W. F. Dawson,
1902.

D. C. A. A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. Edited by Sir W.
Smith and S. Cheetham. 2 vols. 1875-80.

Deimling. The Chester Plays. Re-edited from the MSS. by the late
H. Deimling, 1893. [E. E. T. S., Part i, with Plays 1-13, only published.]

De la Fons-Melicocq. Ceremonies dramatiques et anciens Usages
dans les Eglises du Nord de la France. Par A. de la Fons-Melicocq, 1850.

Denifle. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis. Collegit H. Denifle.
4 vols. 1889-97.

Desjardins. Histoire de la Cathddrale de Beauvais. ParG.Desjardins,
1865.

Deslyons. Traitez singuliers et nouveaux contre le Paganisme du
Roy Boit. Par J. Deslyons, 1670.

Devrient. Geschichte der deutschen Schauspielkunst. Von E.
Devrient. 2 vols. 1848.

Didron. See Annales Arcke'ologiques.

Dieterich. Pulcinella ; pompejanische Wandbilder und romische
Satyrspiele. Von A. Dieterich, 1897.

Diez. Die Poesie der Troubadours. Von F. C. Diez, 1826.

Diez-Bartsch. Leben und Werke der Troubadours. Von F. C. Diez.
Zweite Auflage, von K. Bartsch, 1882.

Digby Plays. See Furnivall ; Sharp.

Dill. Roman Society in the last Century of the Western Empire. By
S. Dill. 2nd ed. 1899.

Ditchfield. Old English Customs extant at the present Time. By
P. H. Ditchfield, 1896.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xxi

Dixon. A History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the
Roman Jurisdiction. By R. W. Dixon. 6 vols. 1878-1902.

D. N. B. Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by L. Stephen
and S. Lee. 66 vols. 1885-1901.

Doran. A History of Court Fools. By J. Doran, 1858.

DOUCE. Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners : with
Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare, and on the English
Morris Dance. By F. Douce, 1839.

Douhet. Dictionnaire des Mysteres. Par Jules, Comte de Douhet,
1854. [J. P. Migne, Encyclope'die Thdologique, Series II, vol. xliii.]

Drake. Shakespeare and his Times. By N. Drake. Paris, 1838.

Dreux de Radier. Histoire des Fous en titre d'Office. Par
J. F. Dreux de Radier, 1768. [In Rdcrdations Historiques.~]

Dreves. Zur Geschichte der Fete des Fous. Von G\ M. Dreves,
1894. \Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, vol. xlvii.]

See also Towneley Plays.

Preller. Rbmische Mythologie. Von L. Preller. 3rd ed. by
H. Jordan. 2 vols. 188 1-3.

Procter-Frere. A New History of the Book of Common Prayer.
By F. Procter. Revised and rewritten by W. H. Frere, 1901.

Prolss. Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Von R. Prolss. 3 vols.
1881-3.

Promptorium Parvulorum. Promptorium Parvulorum seu Clericorum:
Lexicon Anglo-Latinum Princeps, Auctore Fratre Galfrido Grammatico
Dicto, circa 1440. Recensuit A. Way. 3 vols. 1843-65. [C. S. O. S. xxv,
liv, lxxxix.]

Prynne. Histrio-Mastix. The Players Scourge or Actors Tragedie.
By W. Prynne, 1633.

Puech. St. Jean Chrysostome et les Mceurs de son Temps. Par
A. Puech, 1 891.

Ramsay, F. E. The Foundations of England, or Twelve Centuries of
British History; B.C. 55-A.D. 1154. By Sir J. H. Ramsay. 2 vols.
1898.

Ramsay, L. Y. Lancaster and York: 1399-1485. By Sir J. H.
Ramsay. 2 vols. 1892.

Rashdall. The Universities of the Middle Ages. By H. Rashdall.
2 vols. 1895.

Raynaud. Recueil de Motets francais des douzieme et treizieme
Siecles, avec notes, &c, par G. Raynaud. Suivi d'une Etude sur la Mu-
sique au Siecle de S. Louis par H. Lavoix fils. 2 vols. 1881-3.

Regularis Concordia. De Consuetudine Monachorum. Herausgegeben
von W. S. Logemann, 1 891-3. [Anglia, vols, xiii, xv.]

Reidt. Das geistliche Schauspiel des Mittelalters in Deutschland.
Von H. Reidt, 1868.

REINERS. Die Tropen-, Prosen- und Prafations-Gesange des feierlichen
Hochamtes im Mittelalter. Von A. Reiners, 1884. [Not consulted.]

Reliquiae Antiquae. See Wright-Halliwell.

Rev.' Celt. Revue Celtique, dirig^e par H. Gaidoz [afterwards H.
D'Arbois de Jubainville], 24 vols. 1890-1903. [In progress.]

C 2

xxxvi LIST OF AUTHORITIES

Rev. Hist. Rel. Annales du Mus^e Guimet. Revue de l'Histoire des
Religions. 46 vols. 1880-1902. [In progress.]

Rev. T. P. Revue des Traditions populaires, 1886, &c. [Organ of
Societe" des Traditions populaires.']

RHYS, C. F. Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx. By J. Rhys. 2 vols. 1901.

Rhys, C. H. Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as
illustrated by Celtic Heathendom. By J. Rhys, 1888. [The Hibbert
Lectures for 1886.]

Ribton-Turner. A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy. By C. J.
Ribton-Turner, 1887.

RlGOLLOT. Monnaies inconnues des Eveques des Innocens, des Fous,
et de quelques autres Associations singulieres du meme Temps. Par
M. J. R[igollot] d'Amiens. Avec une introduction par C. L[eber]. 2 vols.
(Texte et Planches), 1837.

Riley. Memorials of London and London Life: a series of Extracts
from the Archives of the City of London, 1276-1419. Translated and
edited by H. T. Riley, 1868.

RlMBAULT. Two Sermons Preached by the Boy Bishop. Edited by
J. G. Nichols. With an introduction giving an account of the Festival
of the Boy Bishop in England. By E. F. Rimbault, 1875. [Camden
Miscellany, vol. vii. C. S.]

RlTSON. Ancient English Metrical Romancees. Selected and published
by J. Ritson. 2 vols. 1802. [Vol. I contains a Dissertation on Romance
and Minstrelsy.]

RlTSON, Bibl. Poet. Bibliographia Poetica : a Catalogue of English
Poets, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, with an account of their
Works. By J. Ritson, 1802.

RlTSON, Robin Hood. Robin Hood : a Collection of all the Ancient
Poems, Songs, and Ballads now extant, relative to that Outlaw. Edited
by J. Ritson, 1795.

RlTSON, Songs. Ancient Songs and Ballads, from Henry II to the
Revolution. By J. Ritson. 3rd ed., revised by W. C. Hazlitt, 1877.

Ritual Commission. Second Report of the Commissioners Appointed
to Inquire into the Rubrics, Orders, and Directions for Regulating the
Course and Conduct of Public Worship, &c., 1868. [A Parliamentary
paper. Appendix E (pp. 399-685) is a reprint of Injunctions and Visita-
tion Articles from 1561 to 1730.]

ROCK. The Church of our Fathers, in St. Osmund's Rite for Salisbury,
&c. By D. Rock. 3 vols. 1849-53.

Romania. Romania : Recueil trimestriel consacre' a l'Etude des Langues
et des LitteVatures romanes. 32 vols. 1872-1903. [In progress.]

ROSCHER, Lexicon. Ausfiihrliches Lexicon der griechischen und
rbmischen Mythologie. Herausgegeben von W. H. Roscher, 1884-97.
[In progress.]

Rovenhagen. Alt-englische Dramen. I. Die geistlichen Schauspiele.
Von Prof. Dr. Rovenhagen, 1879.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xxxvii

R. .S\ = Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, or, Chronicles
and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages.
Published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, 1858-99. [Rolis
Series.]

Rymer. Foedera, Conventiones, Literae, et cuiuscumque generis Acta
Publica. Accurante Thoma Rymer. 20 vols. 1704-35.

SAINTSBURY. A Short History of English Literature. By G. Saintsbury,
1898.

Saintsbury, Ren. The Earlier Renaissance. By G. Saintsbury, 1901.
[Periods of European Literature, v.]

Salvian. Salviani Presbyteri Massiliensis Opera Omnia. Recensuit
Franciscus Pauly, 1883. [C.S.E.L. viii. The references in the text are
to the De Gubernatione Dei.]

Sandys. Christmastide : its History, Festivities, and Carols. By W.
Sandys, n. d.

Sandys, Carols. Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, &c. With
an introduction and notes by W. Sandys, 1833.

Sarum Breviary. Breviarium ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Sarum.
Lahore F. Procter et C. Wordsworth. 3 vols. 1882-6.

Sarum Manual. See York Manual.

Sarum Missal. Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae Ecclesiae
Sarum. Lahore et studio F. H. Dickinson, 1861-83.

Sarum Processional. Processionale ad usum Sarum. Edited by W.
G. Henderson, 1882. [From Rouen edition of 1508.] See Wordsworth,
Proc.

SATHAS. 'loropinav 8oic[p.iov ?rep\ tov dtdrpov Kai rrjs /xovctik^s tS>u fiv^avTiviav .
By K. N. Sathas, Venice, 1878.

SAUPE. Der Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum : ein Verzeichnis
heidnischer und aberglaubischer Gebrauche und Meinungen aus der Zeit
Karls des Grossen. Von H. A. Saupe, 189 1. [Leipziger Programm.]

Schack. Geschichte der dramatischen Litteraturund Kunst in Spanien.
Von A. F. von Schack. 3 vols. 1845-6.

SCHAFF. History of the Christian Church. By P. Schaff. 2nd ed.
12 vols. 1883-93.

Schaffer. Geschichte des spanischen Nationaldramas. Von A.
Schaffer, 1890.

SCHANNAT. Concilia Germaniae, quae J. F. Schannat primum collegit,
deinde J. Hartzheim auxit. 11 vols. 1759-90.

SCHELLING. The English Chronicle Play : a Study in the Popular
Historical Literature environing Shakespeare. By F. E. Schelling, 1902.

Scherer. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur. Von W. Scherer.
8th ed. 1899. [Eng. transl. from 3rd ed. by Mrs. F. C. Conybeare,
1886.]

SCHMELLER. Carmina Burana : lateinische und deutsche Lieder und
Gedichte einer Handschrift des xiii. Jahrhunderts aus Benedictbeuem.
Herausgegeben von J. A. Schmeller, 3rd edition, 1894.

xxxviii LIST OF AUTHORITIES

Schmidt. Die Digby-Spiele. Von K. Schmidt, 1884. [Berlin dis-
sertation : continued in Anglia, vol. viii.]

Schmitz. Die Bussbiicher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche. Von
H. J. Schmitz, 1883.

Schonbach. Uber die Marienklagen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
der geistlichen Dichtung in Deutschland. Von A. E. Schonbach, 1874.

Schrader. Reallexicon der indo-germanischen Altertumskunde. Von
O. Schrader, 1901.

Schrader-Jevons. Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan People.
Translated from the ' Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte ' of O. Schrader
by F. B. Jevons, 1890.

Schucking. Studien iiber die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen
Komodie zur italienischen bis Lilly. Von L. L. Schucking, 1901. [Studien
zur englischen Philologie, ix.]

Schultz. Das hdfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesinger. Von
A. Schultz. 2 vols. 2nd edition, 1889.

Seifert. Wit-und-Science Moralitaten. Von J. Seifert, 1892. [Not
consulted.]

Sepet. Les Prophetes du Christ. £tude sur les Origines du Theatre
au Moyen Age. Par Marius Sepet, 1878. [First published in Bibl. des
Charles, vols, xxviii, xxix, xxxviii, from which I quote.]

SEPET, D. C. Le Drame Chretien au Moyen Age. Par Marius Sepet,
1878.

Sepet, Or. Origines catholiques du Theatre moderne. Par Marius
Sepet, 1901.

Sharp. A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries,
anciently performed at Coventry. By T. Sharp, 1825.

Sharp. Digby Plays. Ancient Mysteries from the Digby Manuscripts
in the Bodleian. Edited by T. Sharp, 1835. [Abbolsford Club.]

Sh.-Jahrbuch. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft.
38 vols. 1 865-1902.

Simpson. The Buddhist Praying-wheel : a Collection of Material
bearing upon the Symbolism of the Wheel and Circular Movements in
Custom and Religious Ritual. By W. Simpson, 1896.

SlTTL. Die Gebarden der Griechen und Romer. Von C. Sittl, 1890.

Smith, Gregory. The Transition Period. By G. Gregory Smith,
1900. \Periods of European Literature]

Smith, Robertson. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites : First
Series, The Fundamental Institutions. By W. Robertson Smith. 2nded.
1894.

SMITH, Toulmin. English Gilds: Original Ordinances of more than
a Hundred Gilds. Edited with notes by J. T. Smith, 1870. [E. E. T. S. xl.]

SORGEL. Die englischen Maskenspiele. Von G. Sorgel, 1882.
[Halle dissertation.]

S. P. Dom. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns
of Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, and James I. 12 vols. 1856-72.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xxxix

Specht. Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland. Von
F. A. Specht, 1885.

Spence. Shetland Folk-Lore. By J. Spence, 1899.

Stafford. A Compendious or Brief Examination of Certain Ordinary
Complaints. By W. Stafford, 1581. Edited by F. J. Furnivall, 1876.
[N. S. S. Series vi. 3.]

Stephens-Hunt. A History of the English Church. Edited by
W. R. W. Stephens and W. Hunt. 4 vols. 1899-1902. [In progress.]

Stoddard. References for Students of Miracle Plays and Mysteries.
By F. H. Stoddard, 1887. [University of California Library Bulletin,
No. viii.]

Stowe, Annals. Annales, or a general Chronicle of England. By
J. Stowe. Continued to the end of 1631 by E. Howes, 1631.

Stowe, Survey. A Survey of London. By J. Stowe. Edited by
W. J. Thorns, 1876.

Strutt. The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England : in-
cluding the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries,
Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles, from the earliest
Period to the present Time. By J. Strutt. New ed. by W. Hone, 1833.

STUBBES. The Anatomie of Abuses. By Phillip Stubbes, 1583.
Edited by F. J. Furnivall, 1877-82. [N. S. S. Series vi. 4, 6, 12. Part I
contains Barnaby Googe's translation (1570) of Kirchmayer's Regnwn
Papismi (1553), Bk. iv.]

Suffolk F. L. See County Folk-Lore.

Swete. Church Services and Service-Books before the Reformation.
By H. B. Swete, 1896.

Swoboda. John Heywood als Dramatiker. Ein Beitrag zur Entwick-
lungsgeschichte des englischen Dramas. Von W. Swoboda, 1 888. [ Wiener
Beitrdge zur deutschen und englischen Philologie, iii : not consulted.]

Symonds. Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Drama. By
J. A. Symonds, 1884.

TABOUROT. Orchesographie; par Thoinot Arbeau [pseud, for Jehan
Tabourot], 1588. R&mpression pre'ce'dee d'une notice sur les Danses du
xvie Siecle, par Laure Fonta, 1888.

Ten Brink. History of English Literature. By B. Ten Brink.
Translated from the German. 3 vols. 1893-6. [All published; a 2nd
German edition, by A. Brandl, in progress.]

TERTULLIAN. Quinti Septimi Florentis Tertulliani Opera. Ex re-
censione Augusti Reifferscheid et Georgii Wissowa. Pars i. 1890 [vol. xx
of Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. The De Spectaculis
and De Idololatria are in this vol., and are translated, with the Apologeticus,
in vol. xi of the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 1869. The complete
works of Tertullian are also in P. L. vols, i and ii.]

TEUFFEL. Teuffel's History of Roman Literature. Revised and en-
larged by L. Schwabe. Authorized translation from the 5th German
edition by G. C. W. Warr. 2 vols. 189 1.

xl LIST OF AUTHORITIES

Thiers. Iohannis Baptistae Thiers, de Festorum Dierum Imminu-
tione Liber, 1668.

•Thiers. Traite- des Jeux et des Divertissemens qui peuvent etre
permis. Par J.-B. Thiers, 1686.

TlCKNOR. History of Spanish Literature. By G. Ticknor. 6th
American ed. 3 vols. 1888.

Tiersot. Histoire de la Chanson populaire en France. Par J. Tiersot,
1889.

Tille, D. W. Die Geschichte der deutschen Weihnacht. Von
A. Tille, 1893.

Tille, Y and C. Yule and Christmas : Their Place in the Germanic
Year. By G. Tille, 1899.

TORRACA. II Teatro italiano dei Secoli xiii, xiv, e xv. Per F. Torraca,
1885.

Towneley Plays. The Towneley Mysteries. Edited by J. Raine, with
preface by J. Hunter and glossary by J. Gordon, 1836. [Surlees Soc. iii.]

Towneley Plays. Re-edited from the unique MS. by G. England, with
side-notes and introduction by A. W. Pollard, 1897. [E. E. T.S. E. S.
Ixxi.]

Trad. La Tradition : Revue g£ne"rale des Contes, Legendes, Chants,
Usages, Traditions et Arts populaires.

Ungemacht. Die Quellen der fiinf ersten Chester Plays. Von H.
Ungemacht, 1890.

USENER. Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen. Von H. Usener.
3 vols. 1889-99.

Use of S arum. See Frere.

Vacandard. L'Idolatrie dans la Gaule. Par E. Vacandard, 1899.
[In Revue des Questions historiques, vol. lxv.]

Variorum. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. With
a Life of the Poet and an Enlarged History of the Stage. By the late
E. Malone. Edited by J. Boswell. 21 vols. 1821.

VAUX. Church Folklore. By the Rev. J. E. Vaux, 1894. [A 2nd ed.
was published in 1902.]

Venetian Papers. See Brown.

Viel Testament. Le Mistere du Viel Testament. Public avec intro-
duction, notes et glossaire par le Baron J. de Rothschild. 6 vols. 1878-91.
[Socie't/ des Anciens Textes Erancais.]

VlOLLET-LE-Duc. Ancien Theatre francois : depuis les Mysteres
jusqu'a Corneille. Par E. L. N. Viollet-le-Duc. 10 vols. 1854-7.

VoGT. Leben und Dichten der deutschen Spielleute im Mittelalter.
Von F. Vogt, 1876.

Wackernagel. Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur. Ein Hand-
buch von W. Wackernagel. 2nd ed. by E. Martin, 1879.

Wackernell. Altdeutsche Passionsspiele aus Tirol. Von J. E.
Wackernell, 1897.

Wallaschek. Primitive Music : an Inquiry into the Origin and

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xli

Developnient of Music, Songs, Instruments, Dances, and Pantomimes of
Savage Races. By R. Wallaschek, 1893.

Walter. Das Eselsfest. Von A. Walter, 1885. [In Caecilien-
Kalender, 75.]

Ward. A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of
Queen Anne. By A. W. Ward. 2nd ed. 3 vols. 1899.

Warton. See Hazlitt-Warton.

Wasserschleben. Die Bussordnungen der abendlandischen Kirche.
Von F. W. H. Wasserschleben, 1851.

Weber. Geistliches Schauspiel und kirchliche Kunst in ihrem Ver-
haltnis erlautert an einer Ikonographie der Kirche und Synagoge. Von
P. Weber, 1894.

WECHSSLER. Die romanischen Marienklagen. Ein Beitrag zur Ge-
schichte des Dramas im Mittelalter. Von E. Wechssler, 1893.

WESTERMARCK. A History of Human Marriage. By E. Wester-
marck. 2nd ed. 1894.

Wetzer-Welte. Kirchenlexicon. Von H. J. Wetzer und B. Welte.
2nd ed. by J. Hergenrother and F. Kaulen. 12 vols. 1882-1900. [In
progress.]

WlECK. Der Teufel auf der mittelalterlichen Mysterienbuhne. Von
H. Wieck, 1887. [Marburg dissertation : not consulted.]

Wilken. Geschichte der geistlichen Spiele in Deutschland. Von E.
Wilken, 1872.

Wilkins. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 446-1717.
Accedunt Constitutiones et alia ad Historiam Ecclesiae Anglicanae Spe-
ctantia. 4 vols. 1737.

Wilmotte. Les Passions allemandes du Rhin dans leur Rapport
avec l'ancien Theatre francais. Par M. Wilmotte, 1898. [Ouvrages
couronnh et antres Memoir es publies par VAcademie Roy ale de Bel-
gique, lv.]

Winchester Troper. See Frere.

Wirth. Die Oster- und Passionsspiele bis zum xvi. Jahrhundert. Von
L. Wirth, 1889.

WlSSOWA. Religion und Kultus der Romer. Von G. Wissowa, 1902.
[Vol. v, Part 4 of I. von Midler's Handbuch der classischen Altertums-
wissenschaft.']

WOOD, Athenae. Athenae Oxonienses, an Exact History of all Writers
and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford.
By Anthony a Wood. 2nd ed. by P. Bliss. 4 vols. 1813-20.

WOOD, Hist. Univ. History and Antiquities of the University of
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Wood-Martin. Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland. By W. G.
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Wordsworth. Notes on Mediaeval Services in England, with an
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xlii LIST OF AUTHORITIES

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BOOK I

MINSTRELSY

C'est une etrange entreprise que celle de faire rire les
honnetes gens.— J.-B. POQUELIN DE MOLIERE.

Moliere est un infame histrion.— J.-B. BOSSUET.

CHAPTER I
THE FALL OF THE THEATRES

[Bibliographical Note. — A convenient sketch of the history of the
Roman stage will be found in G. Korting, Geschichte des griechischen
und romischen Theaters (1897). The details given in L. Friedlander,
Sittengeschichte Rotns in der Zeit von August bis zum Ausgang der
Antonine (vol. ii, 7th ed. 1901), and the same writer's article on Die
Spiele in vol. vi of Marquardt and Mommsen's Handbuch der romischen
Alterthiimer (2nd ed. 1885), may be supplemented from E. Noldechen's
article Tertullian und das Theater in Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte,
xv (1894), 161, for the fabulae Atellanae from A. Dieterich, Pulcinella
(1897), chs. 4-8, and for the pantomimi from C. Sittl, Die Gebdrden
der Criechen und Romer (1890), ch. 13. The account in C. Magnin,
Les Origines du Theatre moderne (vol. i, all published, 183S), is by
no means obsolete. Teuffel and Schwabe, History of Latin Litera-
ture, vol. i, §§ 3-18 (trans. G. C. W. Warr, 1891), contains a mass of
imperfectly arranged material. The later history of the Greek stage is
dealt with by P. E. Miiller, Commentatio historica de genio, vwribus et
luxu aevi Theodosiani (1798), vol. ii, and A. E. Haigh, Tragic Drama of
the Greeks (1896), ch. 6. The ecclesiastical prohibitions are collected by
\V. Prynne, Histriomastix (1633), and J. de Douhet, Dictio7inaire des
Mysteres (1&54), and their general attitude summarized by H.Alt, Theater
und Kirche in ihrein gegenseitigen Verhaltniss (1846). S. Dill, Roman
Society in the Last Centwy of the Roman Empire (2nd ed. 1899), should
be consulted for an admirable study of the conditions under which the
pre-mediaeval stage came to an end.]

Christianity, emerging from Syria with a prejudice
against disguisings 1, found the Roman world full of scenici.
The mimetic instinct, which no race of mankind is wholly
without, appears to have been unusually strong amongst the
peoples of the Mediterranean stock. A literary drama came
into being in Athens during the sixth century, and estab-
lished itself in city after city. Theatres were built, and
tragedies and comedies acted on the Attic model, wherever
a Greek foot trod, from Hipola in Spain to Tigranocerta in
Armenia. The great capitals of the later Greece, Alexandria,

1 Deuteronomy, xxii. 5, a com- cit.) asserts, 'non amat falsum

monplace of anti-stage controversy auctor veritatis ; adulterium est

from Tertullian (deSpectaculis,c. 23) apud ilium omne quod fingitur.'
to Histrio-Mastix. Tertullian (loc.

CHAMBERS. I B

2 MINSTRELSY

Antioch, Pergamum, rivalled Athens itself in their devotion
to the stage. Another development of drama, independent
of Athens, in Sicily and Magna Graecia, may be distinguished
as farcical rather than comic. After receiving literary treat-
ment at the hands of Epicharmus and Sophron in the fifth
century, it continued its existence under the name of mime
(fujxos), upon a more popular level. Like many forms of
popular drama, it seems to have combined the elements of
farce and morality. Its exponents are described as buffoons
(yekaiToiToioi, Tiaiyvioypa^oi) and dealers in indecencies (avai-
<rxyvToypd(f)OL), and again as concerning themselves with ques-
tions of character and manners (?)#oAoyoi, aperaXoyoi). They
even produced what sound singularly like problem plays
(v7ro0f'o-as). Both qualities may have sprung from a common
root in the observation and audacious portrayal of contem-
porary life. The mime was still flourishing in and about
Tarentum in the third century \

Probably the Romans were not of the Mediterranean stock,
and their native ludi were athletic rather than mimetic. But
the drama gradually filtered in from the neighbouring peoples.
Its earliest stirrings in the rude farce of the satara are
attributed by Livy to Etruscan influence 2. From Campania
came another type of farce, the Oscum ludicrum or fabula
Atellana, with its standing masks of Maccus and Bucco,
Pappus and Dossennus, in whom it is hard not to find a
kinship to the traditional personages of the Neapolitan corn-
media dell arte. About 240 B. C. the Greek Livius Andro-
nicus introduced tragedy and comedy. The play now
became a regular element in the spectacida of the Roman
festivals, only subordinate in interest to the chariot-race and
the gladiatorial show. Permanent theatres were built in the
closing years of the Republic by Pompey and others, and
the number of days annually devoted to ludi scenici was con-
stantly on the increase. From 48 under Augustus they
grew to 101 under Constantius. Throughout the period of

1 J. Denis, La Comedie grecque not intended for representation

(1886), i. 50, 106 ; ii. 535. The so- (Croiset, Hist, de la Litt. grecque,

called mimes of Herodas (third v. 174).

cent. B. c.) are literary pieces, based 2 Livy, vii. 2 ; Valerius Maximus,

probably on the popular mime but ii. 4. 4 (364 B. a).

• THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 3

the Empire, indeed, the theatre was of no small political
importance. On the one hand it was the rallying point of
all disturbers of the peace and the last stronghold of a
public opinion debarred from the senate and the forum ; on
the other it was a potent means for winning the affection of
the populace and diverting its attention from dynastic
questions. The scenici might be thorns in the side of the
government, but they were quite indispensable to it. If their
perversities drove them from Italy, the clamour of the mob
soon brought them back again. Trajan revealed one of the
arcana imperii when he declared that the amiona and the
spectacula controlled Rome1. And what was true of Rome
was true of Byzantium, and in a lesser degree of the smaller
provincial cities. So long as the Empire itself held together,
the provision firstly of corn and secondly of novel ludi re-
mained one of the chief preoccupations of many a highly
placed official.

The vast popular audiences of the period under consider-
ation cared but little for the literary drama. In the theatre
of Pompey, thronged with slaves and foreigners of every
tongue, the finer histrionic effects must necessarily have been
lost 2. Something more spectacular and sensuous, something
appealing to a cruder sense of humour, almost inevitably took
their place. . There is evidence indeed that, while the theatres
stood, tragedy and comedy never wholly disappeared from
their boards 3. But it was probably only the ancient master-
pieces that got a hearing- Even in Greece performances of
new plays onlclassical models cannot be traced beyond about
the time of Hadrian. And in Rome the tragic poets had long
before then learnt to content themselves with recitations and
to rely for victims on the good nature, frequently inadequate,
of their friends4. The^ s^lted_dramas of Sejieca^were_the

1 Juvenal, x. 81 ; Dion Chryso- given at from 17,580 to 40,000, that

stom, Or. xxxii. 370, 18 M.; Fronto, of the theatre of Balbus at from

Princip. hist. v. 13. A fourth-cen- 11,510 to 30,085, that of the theatre

tury inscription {Bull. d. Commis. of Marcellus as 20,000.
arch. cotnun.diRoma,\&<)\, 3^2)00x1- 3 Friedlander, ii. 100; Haigh,

tains a list of small Roman tabernarii 457; Krumbacher, 646 ; Welcker,

entitiedtolocumspectaculiselpanem. Die griechischen Tragodien (1S41),

* The holding capacity of the iii. 1472.
theatre of Pompey is variously * Juvenal, i. I ; Pliny, Epist. vi.

B 2

4 MINSTRELSY

delight of the. Renaissance but it is improbable that, until
the Renaissance, they were ever dignified with representation.
Roughly speaking, for comedy and tragedy the Empire sub-
stituted farce and pantomime.

Farce, as has been noticed, was the earliest traffic of the
Roman stage. The Atellane, relegated during the brief
vogue of comedy and tragedy to the position of an interlude
or an afterpiece, now once more asserted its independence.
But already during the Republic the Atellane, with its some-
what conventional and limited methods, was beginning to
give way to a more flexible and vital type of farce. This
was none other than the old mime of Magna Graecia, which
now entered on a fresh phase of existence and overran both
West and East. That it underwent considerable modifi-
cations, and probably absorbed much both of Atellane and
of Attic comedy, may be taken for granted. Certainly it
extended its scope to mythological themes. But its leading
characteristics remained unchanged. The ethical element,
one may fear, sank somewhat into the background, although
it was by no means absent from the work of the better mime-
writers, such as Laberius and Publilius Syrus1. But that
the note of shamelessness was preserved there is no doubt
whatever2. The favourite theme, which is common indeed
to farce of all ages, was that of conjugal infidelity3. Un-
chaste scenes were represented with an astonishing realism 4.

15 ; vii. 17 ; Tacitus, de Oratori- 2 Incerti (fourth century) ad

bus, 9, II. Terentium (ed. Giles, i. xix) ' mimos

The Scntentiae of Publilius ab diuturna imitatione vilium rerum

Syrus were collected from his et levium personarum.' Diomedes

mimes in the first century a. D., and (fifth century), Ars Grammatical,

enlarged from other sources during iii. 488 ' mimus est sermonis

the Middle Ages (Teuffel-Schwabe, cuiuslibet imitatio et motus sine

§ 212). Cf. the edition by W. reverentia, vel factorum et dictorum

Meyer, 1S80. The other fragments turpium cum lascivia imitatio.'

of the mimographs are included in 3 Ovid, Tristia, ii. 497:

O. Ribbeck, Comicorum Romano- 'quid, si scripsissem mimos ob-

rum Fragmcnta (3rd ed. 1898). scoena iocantes,

Philistion of Bithynia, about the qui semper vetiti crimen amoris

time of Tiberius, gave the mime habent.'

a literary form once more in his * Hist. Augusta, Vita Helioga-

Ku>nu>Si<n fiioXoyiical (J. Denis, La bali, 25 ' in mimicis adulteriis ea

Com. grecquc, ii. 544; Croiset, Hist, quae solent simulato fieri effici ad

de la Litt. grccque, v. 449). verum iussit ' ; cf. the pyrrichae

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 5

Contrary to the earlier custom of the classical stage, women
took part in the performances, and at the F lor alia, loosest
of Roman festivals, the spectators seem to have claimed it
as their right, that^ the vdniac should play naked \ ' The
mimics — for the same term designates both piece and actor —
was just the kind of entertainer whom a democratic audience
loves. Clad in a parti-coloured centunculus, with no mask
to conceal the play of facial gesture, and planipes, with no
borrowed dignity of sock or buskin, he rattled through his
side-splitting scenes of low life, and eked out his text with
an inexhaustible variety of rude dancing, buffoonery and
horse-play 2. Originally the mimes seem to have performed
in monologues, and the action of their pieces continued to
be generally dominated by a single personage, the archi-
viimus, who was provided with certain stupidi and parasiti
to act as foils and butts for his wit. A satirical intention
was frequently present in both mimes and Atellanes, and
their outspoken allusions are more than once recorded to
have wrung the withers of persons of importance and to have
brought serious retribution on the actors themselves. Cali-
gula, for instance, with characteristic brutality, had a ribald
playwright burnt alive in the amphitheatre3.

The farce was the_^iy^morL_i^f--th^^roj^ta^iat_and the
bourgeoisie of_R_omeI_. Petronius, with all the insolence of
the literary man, makes Trimalchio buy a troupe of comedians,
and insist on their playing an Atellane4. The golden and

described by Suetonius, Nero, 12. to-be-traced-here,-

The Roman taste for bloodshed was 2 The 'mimus' type is exactly re-;'

sometimes gratified by mimes given produced by more than one popular'

in the amphitheatre, and designed performer on the modern ' variety '(

to introduce the actual execution or ' burlesque ' stage.

of a criminal. Martial, de Specta- 3 Macrobius, Sat. ii. 7 ; Cicero,

cutis, 7, mentions the worrying and ad Atiicum,\W. 3 ; Suetonius, Au-

crucifixion of a brigand in the mime gustus, 45, 68 ; Tiberius,^ ; Cali-

Laureolus, by order of Domitian : gula, 27; Nero, 39; Galba, 13;

'nudaCaledoniosicpectoraprae- Vespasia?i, 19; Domitian, 10;

buit urso Hist. Augusta, Vita Marc. Aurel.

non falsa pendens in cruce Lau- 8. 29 ; Vita Commodi, 3 ; Vita

reolus.' Maximini, 9.

1 Martial, i. 1 ; Ausonius, Eel. * Petronius, Satyricon, liii ; cf.

xviii. 25; Lactantius (t3oo), de Taming of tlie Shrew, i. 1. 258

Inst. div. i. 20. 10. Jjiohahiv the "Tis a very excellent piece of work,

influence of a piece of folk-ritual is madam lady ; would 'twere done ! '

6 MINSTRELSY

cultured classes preferred the pantomimic dance. This arose
out of the ruins of the literary drama. On the Roman stage
grew up a custom, unknown in Greece, by which the lyric
portions of the text {can tied) were entrusted to a singer who
stood with the flute-player at the side of the stage, while
the actor confined himself to dancing in silence with appro-
priate dumb show. The dialogue (diverbia) continued to
be spoken by the actors. The next step was to drop the
diverbia altogether ; and thus came the pantominms who
undertook to indicate the whole development of a plot in
a series of dramatic dances, during the course of which he
often represented several distinct roles. Instead of the single
flute-player and singer a full choir now supplied the musical
accompaniment, and great poets — Lucan and Statius among
the number — did not disdain to provide texts for the fabidae
salticae. Many of the pantomimi attained to an extreme
refinement in their degenerate and sensuous art. They were,
as Lucian said, yeipovcxpoi, erudite of gesture \ Their subjects
were, for the most part, mythological and erotic, not to say
lascivious, in character2. Pylades the Cilician, who, with
his great rival Bathyllus the Alexandrian, brought the dance
to its first perfection under Augustus, favoured satyric
themes ; but this mode does not appear to have endured.
Practically the dancers were the tragedians, and the mimes
were the comedians, of the Empire. The old Etruscan name
for an actor, histrio, came to be almost synonymous with
pantomimus 3. Rome, which could lash itself into a fury
over the contests between the Whites and Reds or the
Blues and Greens in the circus, was not slow to take sides
upon the respective merits of its scenic entertainers. The

1 Lucian, de Saltatione, 69. origin of the name, cf. Livy, vii. 2

2 Juvenal, Sat. vi. 63 ; Zosimus ' ister Tusco verbo ludius vocaba-
(450-501 A. D.), i. 6 (Corp. Script, tur.' Besides ludhts, actor is good
Hist. Byz. xx. 12) rj re yap travro- Latin. But it is generally used in
fiifios opxTja-is iv eKcipois ela-Tjx^l T0's some such phrase as actor ftrima-
Xpovois . . . ttoWcov airia yzyovora rum personarum, protagonist, and
/le'xpi ToiiSe KaKav. by itself often means dominus

3 This is not wholly so, at any gregis, manager of the grer or
rate in Tacitus, who seems to in- company. Mimus signifies both
elude the players both of mimes performer and performance, fianto-
and of Atellanes amongst histriones mimus the performer only. He is
{Ann. i. 73 ; iv. 14). For the said salt are fabulas.

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 7

histrionalis favor led again and again to brawls which set
the rulers of the city wondering whether after all the panto-
mimi were worth while. Augustus had found it to his
advantage that the spirit of partisanship should attach itself
to a Pylades or a Bathyllus rather than to more illustrious
antagonists1. But the personal instincts of Tiberius were
not so genial as those of Augustus. Early in his principate
he attempted to restrain the undignified court paid by
senators and knights to popular dancers, and when this
measure failed, he expelled the histriones from Italy2. The
example was followed by more than one of his successors,
but Rome clamoured fiercely for its toys, and the period
of exile was never a long one 3.

Both mimi and pantomimi had their vogue in private, at the
banquets and weddings of the great, as well as in public. The
class of scenici further included a heterogeneous variety of
lesser performers. There were the rhapsodes who sung the
tragic cantica, torn from their context, upon the stage. There
were musicians and dancers of every order and from every
land 4. There were jugglers {praestigiatores, acetabuli), rope-
walkers (funambuli), stilt-walkers {grallatores), tumblers
(cernui, petauristae, petaminarii), buffoons {sanniones, scurrae),
beast-tamers and strong men. The pick of them did their
' turns ' in the theatre or the amphitheatre ; the more humble
were content with modest audiences at street corners or in the
vestibule of the circus. From Rome the entertainers of
the imperial race naturally found their way into the theatres
of the provinces. Tragedy and comedy no doubt held their
own longer in Greece, but the stage of Constantinople under
Justinian does not seem to have differed notably from the stage
of Rome under Nero. Marseilles alone distinguished itself by
the honourable austerity which forbade the mimi its gates 5.

1 Dion Cassius, liv. 17. Hadriani, 19 ; Vita Alex. Severi,

2 Tacitus, Annates, i. 77; iv. 14; 34.

Dion Cassius, lvii. 21 ; Suetonius, 4 The fiyrricha, a Greek con-

Tiberius, 37. certed dance, probably of folk

3 Tacitus, Annates, xiii. 25 ; xiv. origin (cf. ch. ix), was often given a
21 ; Dion Cassius, lix. 2 ; lxi. 8 ; mythological argumentum. It was
lxviii. 10; Suetonius, Nero, 16, 26 ; danced in the amphitheatre.
Titus, 7 ; Domitian, 7 ; Pliny, 6 Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 7
Paneg. 46; Hist. Augusta, Vita 'eadem civitas severitatis custos

8 MINSTRELSY

It must not be supposed that the profession of the scenici
ever became an honourable one in the eyes of the Roman law.
They were for the most part slaves or at best freedmen. They
were deliberately branded with infamia or incapacity for civil
rights. This infamia was of two kinds, depending respectively
upon the action of the censors as guardians of public dignity
and that of the praetors as presidents in the law courts. The
censors habitually excluded actors from the ins snffragii and
the ius honorum, the rights of voting and of holding sena-
torial or equestrian rank ; the praetors refused to allow them,
if men, to appear as attorneys, if women, to appoint attorneys,
in civil suits 1. The legislation of Julius Caesar and of Augustus
added some statutory disabilities. The lex lulia municipalis
forbade actors to hold municipal honores 2 : the lex lulia de
adnltcriis set the example of denying them the right to bring
criminal actions 3 ; the lex lulia et Papia Poppaca limited
their privileges when freed, and in particular forbade senators
or the sons of senators to take to wife women who had been,
or whose parents had been, on the stage 4. On the other hand
Augustus confined the ius virgarum, which the praetors had
formerly had over scenici, to the actual place and time of
performances 5 ; and so far as the censorian infamia was con-
cerned, the whole tendency of the late Republic and early
Empire was to relax its application to actors. It came to be
possible for senators and knights to appear on the stage with-
out losing caste. It was a grievous insult when Julius Caesar

acerrima est : nullum aditum in further exemption for persons ap-

scenam mimis dando, quorum argu- pearing in their minority (C.I. C.

menta maiore in parte stuprorum Cod. lust. ii. II. 21). The censors,

continent actus ; ne talia spectandi on the other hand, spared the

consuetudo etiam imitandi licen- Atellani, whose performances had

tiam sumat.' a traditional connexion with re-

1 A. H. J. Greenidge, Infamia ligious rites.

(passim) ; Bouch^-Leclercq, Man- 2 C.I.L.i. 122.

uel des Institutions romaines, 352, 3 C.I. C. Digest, xlviii. 5. 25. A

449 ; Edictum praetoris in C. I. C. husband may kill an actor with

Digest, iii. 2. 1 ' infamia notatur qui whom his wife is guilty.

. . . artis ludicrae pronuntiandive 4 Ibid, xxiii. 2. 42, 44 ; xxxviii. 1.

causa in scaenam prodierit.' The 37 ; Ulpian, Fragm. xiii.

jurists limited the application of 6 Tacitus, Annates, i. yy. An

the rule to professional actors. Thy- attempt to restore the old usage

melici, or orchestral musicians, under Tiberius was unsuccessful,
were exempt. Diocletian made a

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 9

compelled the mimograph Laberius to appear in one of his
own pieces. But after all Caesar restored Laberius to his
rank of eques, a dignity which at a still earlier date Sulla had
bestowed on Roscius l. Later the restriction broke down
altogether, although not without an occasional reforming effort
to restore it2. Nero himself was not ashamed to take the
boards as a singer of cantica 3. And even an i?ifamis, if he
were the boon companion of a prince, might be appointed to
a post directly depending on the imperial dignity. Thus
Caracalla sent a pantomimus to hold a military command on
the frontier, and Heliogabalus made another praefectus urbi in
Rome itself4. Under Constantine a reaction set in, and a new
decree formally excluded scenici from all dignitates 5. The
severe class legislation received only reluctant and piecemeal
modification, and the praetorian infamia outlived the Empire
itself, and left its mark upon Carolingian jurisprudence6.

The relaxation of the old Roman austerity implied in the
popularity of the viimi and histriones did not pass uncensured
by even the pagan moralists of the Empire. The stage has
a share in the denunciations of Tacitus and Juvenal, both of
whom lament that princes and patricians should condescend
to practise arts once relegated to the infames. Martial's
hypocrite rails at the times and the theatres. Three centuries
later the soldierly Ammianus Marcellinus finds in the
gyrations . of the dancing-girls, three thousand of whom were
allowed to remain in Rome when it was starving, a blot
upon the fame of the state ; and Macrobius contrasts the
sober evenings of Praetextatus and his friends with revels
dependent for their mirth on the song and wanton motions of

1 Caesar was tolerably magnani- Domitian, 8.

mous, for Laberius had already * Suetonius, Nero, 21; Tacitus,

taken his revenge in a scurrilous Ann. xiv. 14 ; Juvenal, viii. 198 ;

prologue. It had its touch of pathos, Pseudo-Lucian, Nero, 9.

too : 4 Dion Cassius, lxxvii. 21 ; Hist.

'eques Romanus lare egressus Augusta, Vita Heliogabali, 12.

meo Yet in the time of Severus a soldier

domum revertar mimus.' going on the stage was liable to

2 CicerO, ad Fam. x. 32 ; Dion death (C. /. C. Digest, xlviii. 19.
Cassius, xlviii. 33 ; liii. 31 ; liv. 2; 14).

lvi. 47 ; lvii. 14 ; lix. 10; lxi. 9; 5 C. I. C. Cod. lust. xii. 1. 2.

lxv. 6; Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 20; Hist. 6 Cf. p. 38.
ii. 62 ; Suetonius, Augustus, 45 ;

10 MINSTRELSY

the psaltria or the jests of sabulo and planipes x. Policy
compelled the emperors to encourage spectacula, but even they
were not always blind to the ethical questions involved.
Tiberius based his expulsion of the kistriones, at least in part,
on moral grounds. Marcus Aurelius, with a philosophic
regret that the high lessons of comedy had sunk to mere
mimic dexterity, sat publicly in his box and averted his eyes
to a state-paper or a book2. Julian, weaned by his tutor
Mardonius from a boyish love of the stage, issued strict
injunctions to the priests of the Sun to avoid a theatre which
he despaired of reforming 3. Christian teachers, unconcerned
with the interests of a dynasty, and claiming to represent
a higher morality than that either of Marcus Aurelius or of
Julian, naturally took even stronger ground. Moreover, they
had their special reasons for hostility to the stage. That the
actors should mock at the pagan religion, with whose ludi their
own performances were intimately connected, made a good
dialectical point. But the connexion itself was unpardonable,
and still more so the part taken by the mimes during the war
of creeds, in parodying and holding up to ridicule the most
sacred symbols and mysteries of the church. This feeling is
reflected in the legends of St. Genesius, St. Pelagia and other
holy folk, who are represented as turning from the scenic
profession to embrace Christianity, the conversion in some
cases taking place on the very boards of the theatre itself4.

1 Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 20 ; Juvenal, He also thinks that the moral lay-
vi. 60 ; viii. 183 ; Martial, ix. 28. 9 ; man should avoid the theatre
Ammianus Marcellinus, xiv. 6. 18 ; (Misopogon, p. 343 c).

xxviii. 4. 32 ; Macrobius, ii. 1. 5, 9. 4 On the critical problem offered

2 M. Aurelius, Comm. xi. 6 ; Hist, by such vitae cf. Prof. Bury in
Augusta, Vita M. Aurel. 15. This Gibbon, i. 1. B. von der Lage,
refers directly to the circus. Studien zur Genesius - legende

3 Gibbon, ii. 447; Schaff, v. 49; (1898), attempts to show that the
Dill, 34, 100 ; P. Allard, Julien legends of St. Genesius {Acta SS.
VApostat, i. 272; Alice Gardner, Aug. v. 122), St. Gelasius {Acta SS.
Julian the Apostate,20i ; G.H.Ren- Fed. hi. 680), St. Ardalio {Acta SS.
dall, The Emperor Julian (1879), Apr. ii. 213), St. Porphyrius {Acta
106. The most interesting passage SS. Sept. v. 27)j and another St.
is a fragmentary ' pastoral letter ' Porphyrius {Acta SS. Nov. ii. 230)
to a priest (ed. Hertlein, Fragm. are all variants of a Greek story
Ep. p. 304 B ; cf. Ep. 49, p. 430 B ) ; originally told of an anonymous
Julian requires the priests to ab- mimus. The Passio of St. Genesius
stain even from reading the Old represents him as a magister mimi-
Comedy {Fragm. Ep. p. 300 D). themelae artis, converted while he

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES

So far as the direct attack upon the stage is concerned, the
key-note of patristic eloquence is struck in the characteristic
and uncompromising treatise De Spectaculis of Tertullian.
Here theatre, circus, and amphitheatre are joined in a three-
fold condemnation. Tertullian holds that the Christian has
explicitly forsworn spectacula, when he renounced the devil
and all his works and vanities at baptism. What are these
but idolatry, and where is idolatry, if not in the spectacula,
which not only minister to lust, but take place at the festivals
and in the holy places of Venus and Bacchus ? The story is
told of the demon who entered a woman in the theatre and
excused himself at exorcism, because he had found her in his
own demesne. A fervid exhortation follows. To worldly
pleasures Christians have no claim. If they need spectacula
they can find them in the exercises of their Church. Here are
nobler poetry, sweeter voices, maxims more sage, melodies
more dulcet, than any comedy can boast, and withal, here is
truth instead of fiction. Moreover, for Christians is reserved
the last great spectaculum of all. ' Then,' says Tertullian,
' will be the time to listen to the tragedians, whose lamenta-
tions will be more poignant for their proper pain. Then will
the comedians turn and twist, rendered nimbler than ever by
the sting of the fire that is not quenched V With Tertullian
asceticism is always a passion, but the vivid African rhetoric
is no unfair sample of a catena of outspoken comment which
extends across the third century from Tatian to Lactantius 2.

was mimicking a baptism before
Diocletian and martyred. It pro-
fesses to give part of the dialogue of
the mime. The legends of St. Phile-
mon (Menologium Basilii, ii. 59 ;
cf. Acta SS. Mar. i. 751) and St.
Pelagia or Margarita {Acta SS. Oct.
iv. 248) appear to be distinct. Pal-
ladius, Vita Chrysostotni, 8, records
how the stage of Antioch in the
fifth century rang with the scandals
caused by the patriarch Severus
and other Monophysite heretics.

1 Tertullian, De Sped., especially
cc. 4, 26, 30. SchafT, iv. 833, dates
the treatise t2oo. An earlier
Greek writing by Tertullian on the
same subject is lost ; cf. also his

Apologeticus, 1 5 {P. L. i. 357). The
information as to the contemporary
stage scattered through Tertullian's
works is collected by E. Noldechen,
Tertullian und das Theater (Z. /.
Kirchengeschichte (1894), xv. 161).
An anonymous De Spectaculis, for-
merly ascribed to St. Cyprian,
follows on Tertullian's lines (P. L.
iv. 779, transl. in Ante-Nicene
Christian Libr. xiii. 221).

2 Tatian, ad Graecos, 22 (P. G.
vi. 856) ; Minucius Felix, Octavius,
27 (P. L. iii. 352) ; Cyprian, Epist.
i. 8 (P. L. iv. 207) ; Lactantius, de
Inst. div. vi. 20 {P. L. vi. 710), ' quid
de mimis loquar, corruptelarum
praeferentibus disciplinary qui do-

MINSTRELSY

The judgement of the Fathers finds more cautious expression
in the disciplinary regulations of the Church. An early formal
condemnation of actors is included in the so-called Canons of
Hippolytus \ and the relations of converts to the stage were
discussed during the fourth century by the councils of Elvira
(306) and of Aries (314) and by the third and fourth councils
of Carthage (397-398) 2. It was hardly possible for practical
legislators to take the extreme step of forbidding Christian
laymen to enter the theatre at all. No doubt that would be the
counsel of perfection, but in dealing with a deep-seated popular
instinct something of a compromise was necessary 3. An
absolute prohibition was only established for the clergy: so
far as the laity were concerned, it was limited to Sundays and
ecclesiastical festivals, and on those days it was enforced by
a threat of excommunication 4. No Christian, however, might
be a scenicus or a scenica, or might marry one ; and if a member
of the unhallowed profession sought to be baptized, the
preliminary of abandoning his calling was essential5.

3 The strongest pronouncement
is that of Augustine and others in
3 Cone. Carth. c. 1 1 ' ut filii epi-
scoporum vel clericorum spectacula
saecularia non exhibeant, sed non
spectent, quandoquidem ab specta-
culo et omnes laici prohibeantur.
Semper enim Christianis omnibus
hoc interdictum est, ut ubi blasphe-
mi sunt, non accedant.'

4 4 Cone. Carth. c. 88 ' Qui die
solenni, praetermisso solenni eccle-
siae conventu, ad spectacula vadit,
excommunicetur.'

5 D. C.A. s.vv. Actor, Theatre;
Bingham, vi. 212, 373, 439; Alt,
310; Prynne, 556. Some, how-
ever, of the pronouncements of the
fathers came to have equal force
with the decrees of councils in
canon law. The Code of Gratian
(til 39), besides 3 Cone. Carth.
c. 35 ' scenicis atque ystrionibus,
ceterisque huiusmodi personis, vel
apostaticis conversis, vel reversis
ad Deum, gratia vel reconcilia-
tio non negetur ' (C. I. Can. iii.
2. 96) and 7 Cone. Carth. (419) c. 2
(Mansi, iv. 437) 'omnes etiam infa-
miae maculis aspersi, id est histrio-

cent adulteria, dum fingunt, et
simulatis erudiunt ad vera ? ' ; cf.
Du Menl, Or. Lat. 6 ; Schaff, iii.
339. A remarkable collection of
all conceivable authorities against
the stage is given by Prynne, 566,
685, &c.

1 Canones Hippolyti, 67 (Du-
chesne, 509) 'Quicumque fit dea-
rptKos vel gladiator et qui currit vel
docet voluptates vel [illegible] vel
[illegible] vel Kwrjyos vel lmro8p6-
nos [?], vel qui cum bestiis pugnat
vel idolorum sacerdos, hi omnes
non admittuntur ad sermones
sacros nisi prius ab illis immundis
operibus purgentur.' This is from
an Arabic translation of a lost
Greek original. M. Duchesne says
' ce recueil de prescriptions litur-
giques et disciplinaires est surement
antdrieur au ive siecle, et rien ne
s'oppose a ce qu'il remonte a la
date indiquee par le nom d'Hippo-
lyte' [1198-236].

2 Cone. 1Mb. cc. 62, 67 (Mansi,
ii. 16) ; Cone. Arelat. c. 5 (Mansi,
ii. 471) ; 3 Cone. Carth. cc. 11, 35
(Mansi, iii. 882, 885); 4 Cone.
Carth. cc. 86, 88 (Mansi, iii. 958).

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES

It is curious to notice that a certain sympathy with the
stage seems to have been characteristic of one of the great
heresiarchs. This was none other than Arius, who is said to
have had designs of setting up a Christian theatre in rivalry
to those of paganism, and his strange work, the Thaleia, may
perhaps have been intended to further the scheme. At any
rate an orthodox controversialist takes occasion to brand his
Arian opponents and their works as ' thymelic ' or 'stagy'1.
But it would probably be dangerous to lay undue stress upon
what, after all, is as likely as not to be merely a dialectical
metaphor.

After the edict of Milan (313), and still more after the end
of the pagan reaction with the death of Julian (363), Christian
influences began to make themselves felt in the civil legislation
of the Empire. But if the councils themselves were chary of
utterly forbidding the theatre, a stronger line was not likely
to be taken in rescripts from Constantinople or Ravenna.
The emperors were, indeed, in a difficult position. They
stood between bishops pleading for decency and humanity
and populaces now traditionally entitled to their pattern ct
spcctacula. The theatrical legislation preserved in the Code of
Theodosius is not without traces of this embarrassment2. It

nes . . . abaccusationeprohibentur'
(C. I. Can. ii. 4. I. 1), includes two
patristic citations. One is Cyprian,
Ep. lxi. {P. L. iv. 362), which is ' de
ystrione et mago illo, qui apud vos
constitutus adhuc in suae artis
dedecore perseverat,' and forbids
' sacra communio cum ceteris
Christianis dari ' (C. I. Can. iii. 2.
95); the other Augustine, Tract.
C. ad c. 16 Iohannis (P. L. xxxv.
1891) 'donare res suas histrionibus
vitium est immane, non virtus ' (C.
I. Can. i. 86. J). Gratian adds Isi-
dorus Hispalensis, de Eccl. Off- ii. 2
(P. L. lxxxiii. 778) ' his igitur lege
Patrum cavetur, ut a vulgari vita
seclusi a mundi voluptatibus sese
abstineant ; non spectaculis, non
pompis intersint' (C. /. Can. i.

23- 3)-

1 Sathas, 7 ; Krumbacher, 644.

Anastasius Sinaita (bp. of An-
tioch, 564) in his tract, Adversus

Monophvsitas ac Monothelitas
(Mai, Coll. Nov. Script. Vet. vii.
202), speaks of the avyypafxp.ara
of the Arians as dvp.€\i>cas fii-
fihovs, and calls the Arian Euno-

mius TrpcDToaTaTTjs TJ]S 'Apeiov 6vfj.e-
Xik^? opxTjo-rpas. I doubt if these
phrases should be taken too liter-
ally ; possibly they are not more
than a criticism of the buffoonery
and levity which the fragments of
the edXtta display. Krumbacher
mentions an orthodox xAvTi6d\aa
of which no more seems to be
known.

2 Alt, 310 ; Bingham, vi. 273 ;
S chaff, v. 106, 125; Haigh, 460;
Dill, 56; P.Allard,/»/zV?« FApostat.
i. 230. The Codex Theodosianus,
drawn up and accepted for both
empires t435, contains imperial
edicts from the time of Constantine
onwards.

14 MINSTRELSY

is rather an interesting study. The views of the Church were
met upon two points. One series of rescripts forbade perform-
ances on Sundays or during the more sacred periods of the
Christian calendar x : another relaxed in favour of Christians
the strict caste laws which sternly forbade actresses or their
daughters to quit the unhappy profession in which they were
born 2. Moreover, certain sumptuary regulations were passed,
which must have proved a severe restriction on the popularity
as well as the liberty of actors. They were forbidden to wear
gold or rich fabrics, or to ape the dress of nuns. They must
avoid the company of Christian women and i>oys. They must
not come into the public places or walk the streets attended
by slaves with folding chairs 3. Some of the rescripts contain
phrases pointed with the bitterest contempt and detestation of
their victims 4. Theodosius will not have the portraits of
scenici polluting the neighbourhood of his own imagines 5. It
is made very clear that the old court favourites are now to
be merely tolerated. But they are to be tolerated. The idea
\ of suppressing them is never entertained. On the contrary
'the provision of spectacula and of performers for them
remains one of the preoccupations of the government 6. The
praetor is expected to be lavish on this item of his budget 7,

1 Spectaatla are forbidden on the concessions, in the interest of
Sunday, unless it is the emperor's the public voluptates, but this may
birthday, by C. Th. xv. 5. 2 (386), have been only a temporary or local
which also forbids judges to rise measure.

for them, except on special occa- 3 C. Th. xv. 7. 11 (393) ; xv. 7. 12

sions, and C. Th. ii. 8. 23 (399). (394); xv. 13. I (396).
The exception is removed by C. Th. 4 C. Th. iv. 6. 3 (336) 'scenicae

ii. 8; 25 (409) and C. lust. iii. 12. 9 ... quarum venenis inficiuntur

(469). The Christian feasts and animi perditorum'; xv. 7. 8 (381),

fasts, Christmas, Epiphany, the of the relapsing scenica, ' perma-

first week in Lent, Passion and neat donee anus ridicula, senectute

Easter weeks are added by C. Th. deformis, nee tunc quidem absolu-

ii. 8. 23 (400) and C. Th. xv. 5. 5 tione potiatur, cum aliud quam

(425). According to some MSS. casta esse non possit.'
this was done by C. Th. ii. 8. 19 5 C. Th. xv. 7. 12 (394).

(389), but the events of 399 recorded 6 C. Th. xv. 6. 2 (399 J is explicit,

below seem to show that 400 is the ' ludicras artes concedimus agitari,

right date. ne ex nimia harum restrictione

2 C. Th. xv. 7. I, 2 (371) ; xv. 7. tristitia generetur.'
4 (380); xv. 7. 9 (381). Historians 7 C. Th. vi. 4. 2 (327) ; vi. 4. 4
have seen in some of these rescripts (339) ; vi. 4. 29 (396) ; vi. 4. 32 (397).
which are dated from Milan the It appears from the decree of 396
influence of St. Ambrose. C. Th. that the 'theatralisdispensio' of the
xv. 7. 13 (414) seems to withdraw praetors had been diverted to the

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 15

and special municipal officers, the tribuni voluptatutn, are
appointed to superintend the arrangements 1. Private indi-
viduals and rival cities must not deport actors, or withdraw
them from the public service 2. The bonds of caste, except
for the few freed by their faith, are drawn as tight as ever 3,
and when pagan worship ceases the shrines are preserved
from demolition for the sake of the theatres built therein 4.

The love of even professing Christians for spectacula proved
hard to combat. There are no documents which throw more
light on the society of the Eastern Empire at the close of the
fourth century than the works of St. Chrysostom ; and to
St. Chrysostom, both as a priest at Antioch before 397 and as
patriarch of Constantinople after that year, the stage is as
present a danger as it was to Tertullian two centuries earlier 6.
A sermon preached on Easter-day, 399, is good evidence of
this. St. Chrysostom had been attacking the stage for
a whole year, and his exhortations had just come to nought.
Early in Holy Week there was a great storm, and the people
joined the rogatory processions. But it was a week of ludi.
On Good Friday the circus, and on Holy Saturday the theatre,
were thronged and the churches were empty. The Easter
sermon was an impassioned harangue, in which the preacher
dwelt once more on the inevitable corruption bound up with
things theatrical, and ended with a threat to enforce the sen-
tence of excommunication, prescribed only a few months before
by the council of Carthage, upon whoever should again ven-
ture to defy the Church's law in like fashion on Sunday or
holy day6. Perhaps one may trace the controversy which

building of an aqueduct ; they are sacrifice or superstition.

now to give 'scenicas voluptates ' 5 A. Puech, St. Jean Chrysostome

again. Symmachus, Ep. vi. 42, et les Mceurs de son Temps (1891),

describes his difficulties in getting 266, has an interesting chapter on the

scenici for his son's praetorship, spectacula. He refers to Horn, in

which cost him ,£80,000. They Matt. 6, 7, 37, 48 ; Horn, in Ioann.

were lost at sea ; cf. Dill, 151. 18 ; Horn, in Ep. I ad Thess. 5 ;

1 See Appendix A. Horn, de Ddv. et Saul, 3 ; Horn, in

2 C. Th. xv. 7. 5 (380) ; xv. 7. 10 Prise. etAguil.i,8cc. Most of these
(385) ; C. Just. xi. 41. 5 (409). works belong to the Antioch period ;

3 C. Th. xv. 7. 8 (381) ; xiv. 7. 3 cf. also Allard, i. 229. In de Sacer-
(412). dotio I, Chrysostom, like Augustine,

4 C. Th. xvi. 10. 3 (346). But records his own delight in the stage
C. Th. xvi. 10. 17 (399) forbids as a young man.

' voluptates ' to be connected with 6 P. G. lvi. 263.

16 MINSTRELSY

St. Chrysostom's deliverance must have awakened, on the one
hand in the rescript of the autumn of 399 pointedly laying
down that the ludicrae artes must be maintained, on the. other
in the prohibition of the following year against performances
in Holy week, and similar solemn tides.

More than a century after the exile and death of
St. Chrysostom the theatre was still receiving state recog-
nition at Constantinople. A regulation of Justinian as to
the ludi to be given by newly elected consuls specified a per-
formance on the stage ominously designated as the 'Harlots '*.
By this date the status of the theatrical profession had at last
undergone further and noticeable modification. The ancient
Roman prohibition against the marriage of men of noble birth
with scenicae or other infames or the daughters of such, had
been re-enacted under Constantine. A partial repeal in 454
had not extended to the scenicae 2. During the first half of
the sixth century, however, a series of decrees removed their
disability on condition of their quitting the stage, and further
made it an offence to compel slaves or freed women to per-
form against their will 3. ' In these humane relaxations of the
ricid laws of theatrical caste has often been traced the hand of
the empress Theodora, who, according to the contemporary
gossip of Procopius, was herself, before her conversion, one of
the most shameless of mimes. But it must be noted that the
most important of the decrees in question preceded the acces-
sion of Justinian, although it may possibly have been intended
to facilitate his own marriage 4. The history of the stage in

1 C. I. C. Nov. lust. cv. I (536) sureties of actresses who hinder
1 faciet processum qui ad theatrum them from conversion and quitting
ducit, quern pornas vocant, ubi in the stage. For similar legislation
scena ridiculorum est locus tragoe- cf. Nov. li ; Ixxxix. 15; cxvii. 4.
dis et thymelicis choris ' ; cf. Chori- By Nov. cxvii. 8. 6 a man is per-
cius, Apology for Mimes, ed. Ch. mitted to turn his wife out of doors
Graux, in R. d. PJiilologie, i. 209 ; and afterwards repudiate her, if she
Krumbacher, 646. goes to theatre, circus, or amphi-

2 C. Th. iv. 6. 3 (336) ; C. lust, theatre without his knowledge or
v. 5. 7 (454). against his will.

s C. lust. v. 4. 23 (520-3) allows 4 Gibbon, iv. 212, 516 (with

the marriage on condition of an Prof. Bury's additions) ; C. E. Mal-

imperial rescript and a dotale ittg- let in E. H. Review, ii. 1 ; A. Debi-

strumentu??i. C. lust. i. 4. 33 (534) dour, L' Tmperatrice Theodora, 59.

waives the rescript. It also 1m- Neither Prof. Bury nor the editor

poses penalties on Jideiussores or of the C. I. C. accepts M. Debi-

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 17

the East cannot be traced much further with any certainty.
The canons of the Quinisextine council, which met in the
Trullan chamber to codify ecclesiastical discipline in 692,
appear to contemplate the possibility of performances still
being given1. A modern Greek scholar, M.Sathas, has made
an ingenious attempt to establish the existence of a Byzantine
theatrical tradition right through the Middle Ages ; but
Dr. Krumbacher, the most learned historian of Byzantine
literature, is against him, and holds that, so far as our know-
ledge goes, the theatre must be considered to have perished
during the stress of the Saracen invasions which, in the
seventh and eighth centuries, devastated the East 2.

The ending of the theatre in the West was in very similar
fashion. Chrysostom's great Latin contemporaries, Augustine
and Jerome, are at one with him and with each other in their
condemnation of the evils of the public stage as they knew it3.
Their divergent attitude on a minor point may perhaps be
explained by a difference of temperament. The fifth century
saw a marked revival of literary interests from which even
dignitaries of the Church did not hold themselves wholly aloof.
Ausonius urged his grandson to the study of Menander.
Sidonius, a bishop and no undevout one, read both Menander
and Terence with his son 4. With this movement Augustine
had some sympathy. In a well-known passage of the Con-
fessions he records the powerful influence exercised by tragedy,

dour's dating of C. List. v. 4. 23 pagan religious festivals of a semi-
under Justinian in 534. theatrical character ; cf. ch. xiv.
1 Mansi, xi. 943. Canon 3 ex- C. 66 forbids the circus or any Se-
cludes one who has married a fxuSrjs dea in Easter week.
oKTjviKT) from orders. C. 24 forbids 2 Sathas, passim ; Krumbacher,
priests and monks Ov/x^ikcov nai- 644.

ywo)!/ di-f^irAii, and confirms a de- 3 Jerome, in Ezechiel (410-15)

cree of the council of Laodicea 'a. spectaculis removeamus oculos

(cf. p. 24, n. 4) obliging them, if arenae circi theatri ' (P. L. xxv.

present at a wedding, to leave the 1S9) ; Augustine, de Fide et Sym-

room before to. naiyvia are intro- bolo (393) ' in theatris labes morum,

duced. C. 51 condemns, both for discere turpia, audire inhonesta,

clergy and laity, rols Xcyopivovs videre perniciosa ' (P. L. xl. 639 ;

fiifiovs Kal ra tovtwv Gtarpa and ras cf. the sermon quoted in Appendix

eVi (tktjvuv opxrjvtis. For clergy the N, N°. x.

penalty is degradation, for laity ex- * Ausonius, Idyl. iv. 46 ; Sido-

communication. C. 61 provides a nius, Ep. iv. 12 ' legebamus, pariter

six-years' excommunication for bear- laudabamus, iocabamurque.'
leaders and such. C. 62 deals with

CHAMBERS. I C

18 MINSTRELSY

and particularly erotic tragedy, over his tempestuous youth *.
And in the City of God he draws a careful distinction between
the higher and the lower forms of drama, and if he does not
approve, at least does not condemn, the use of tragedies and
comedies in a humane education 2. Jerome, on the other hand,
although himself like Augustine a good scholar, takes a more
ascetic line, and a letter of his protesting against the reading
of comedies by priests ultimately came to be quoted as arr
authority in Roman canon law 3.

The references to the stage in the works of two somewhat
younger ecclesiastical writers are of exceptional interest.
Orosius was a pupil of both Jerome and Augustine ; and
Orosius, endeavouring a few years after the sack of Rome by
the Goths to prove that that startling disaster was not due to
Christianity, lays great and indeed exaggerated importance
on the share of the theatre in promoting the decay of the
Empire 4. About the middle of the fifth century the same
note is struck by Salvian in his remarkable treatise De Guber-
natione Dei 5. The sixth book of his work is almost entirely
devoted to the spectacula. Like Tertullian, Salvian insists on
the definite renunciation of spectacula by Christians in their
baptismal vow 6. Like Orosius, he traces to the weakening of

1 Augustine, Conf. iii. 2, 3 (P. L. facere voluptatis ' (C. I. Can. i.
xxxii. 683). The whim took him 37. 2).

once ' theatrici carminis certamen 4 Orosius, Hist. adv. Paganos

inire.' (417), iv. 21. 5 'theatra incusanda,

2 Aug. de Civ. Dei, ii. 8 {P. L. non tempora.' On the character of
xli. 53) 'et haec sunt scenico- the treatise of Orosius cf. Dill, 312;
rum tolerabiliora ludorum, comoe- Gibbon, iii. 490. Mr. Dill shows
diae scilicet et tragoediae ; hoc est, in the third book of his admirable
fabulae poetarum agendae in spec- work that bad government and bad
taculis, multa rerum turpitudine sed finance had much more to do with
nulla saltern sicut alia multa ver- the breakdown of the Empire than
borum obscoenitate compositae ; the bad morals of the stage.

quas etiam inter studia quae honesta 6 Dill, 58, 137; Hodgkin, i. 930.

ac libcralia vocantur pueri legere et Salvian was a priest of Marseilles,

discere coguntur a senibus.' and wrote between 439 and 451.

3 Jerome, Eft. 21 (alii 146) ad 6 Salvian, vi. 31 'quae est enim
Damasian, written 383 (P. L. xxii. in baptismo salutari Christianorum
386) 'at nunc etiam sacerdotes prima confessio ? quae scilicet nisi
Dei, omissisevangeliis et prophetis, ut renuntiare se diabolo ac pompis
videmus comoedias legere, amatoria eius et spectaculis atque operibus
bucolicorum versuum verba canere, protestentur ? ' The natural inter-
tenere Vergilium, et id quod in pretation of this is that the word
pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se ' spectaculis ' actually occurred in

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 19

moral fibre by these accursed amusements the failure of the West
to resist the barbarians. Moritur et ridct is his epigram on the
Roman world. The citizens of Treves, three times destroyed,
still called upon their rulers for races and a theatre. With the
Vandals at the very gates of Cirta and of Carthage, ccclesia
Carthaginiensis insaniebat in circis, luxuriebat in theatrisx.
Incidentally Salvian gives some valuable information as to
the survival of the stage in his day. Already in 400 Augustine /
had been able to say that the theatres were falling on every
side 2. Salvian, fifty years later, confirms the testimony, but
he adds the reason. It was not because Christians had learnt
to be faithful to their vows and to the teachings of the Church ;
but because the barbarians, who despised spectacula, and therein
set a good example to degenerate Romans '6, had sacked half
the cities, while in the rest the impoverished citizens could no
longer pay the bills. He adds that at Rome a circus was still
open and a theatre at Ravenna, and that these were thronged
with delighted travellers from all parts of the Empire 4. There
must, however, have been a theatre at Rome as well, for
Sidonius found it there when he visited the city, twelve years
after it had been sacked for the second time, in 467. He was
appointed prefect of the city, and in one of his letters expresses
a fear lest, if the corn-supply fail, the thunders of the theatre
may burst upon his head 5. In a poem written a few years
earlier he describes the spectacula thcatri of mimes, panto-
mimes, and acrobats as still flourishing at Narbonne 6.

The next and the latest records of the stage in the West

the formula abrenuntiationis. Was pene civitates cadunt theatra . . .

this so ? It was not when Tertul- cadunt et fora vel moenia, in quibus

lian wrote (t2co). He gives the demonia colebantur. Unde enim

formula as ' renunciare diabolo et cadunt, nisi inopia rerum, quarum

pompae et angelis eius,' and goes lascivo et sacrilego usu constructa

on to argue that visiting ' spectacula' sunt.'

amounts to 'idolatria,' or worship of 3 This point was made also by

the ' diabolus ' {de Spectaculz's, c. 4). Chrysostom in the Easter-day ser-

Nor is the word used in any of the mon, already cited on p. 15.
numerous versions of the formula * Salvian, vi. 39, 42, 49.
given by Schaff,iii. 248; Duchesne, 6 Sidonius, Ep. i. 10. 2 ' vereor

293 ; Martene, i. 44 ; Martin von autem ne famem Populi Romani

Bracara, de Caeremoniis (ed. Cas- theatralis caveae fragor insonet et

pari), c.l 5. infortunio meo publica deputetur

1 Salvian, vi. 69, 87. esuries' ; cf. Ep. i. 5. 10.

2 Augustine, de Cons. Evang. i. 6 Sidonius, Carm. xxiii. 263
33 (P. L. xxxiv. 1068) 'per omnes (t46o) ; cf. Ep. ix. 13. 5.

C 2

SO MINSTRELSY

date from the earlier part of the sixth century, when the
Ostrogoths held sway in Italy. They are to be found in
the Variae of Cassiodorus, who held important official posts
under the new lords of Rome, and they go to confirm the in-
ference which the complaint of Salvian already suggests that
a greater menace to the continuance of the theatre lay in the
taste of the barbarians than even in the ethics of Christianity.
The Ostrogoths had long dwelt within the frontiers of the
Empire, and Theodoric, ruling as ' King of the Goths and
Romans in Italy,' over a mixed multitude of Italians and
Italianate Germans, found it necessary to continue the
spectacula, which in his heart he despised. There are many
indications of this in the state-papers preserved in the Variae,
which may doubtless be taken to express the policy and temper
of the masters of Cassiodorus in the rhetorical trappings of
the secretary himself. The scenici are rarely mentioned with-
out a sneer, but their performances and those of the aurigae,
or circus-drivers, who have now come to be included under
the all-embracing designation of histriones, are carefully
regulated *. The gladiators have, indeed, at last disappeared,
two centuries after Constantine had had the grace to sup-
press them in the East2. There is a letter from Theodoric
to an architect, requiring him to repair the theatre of Pompey,
and digressing into an historical sketch, imperfectly erudite,
of the history of the drama, its invention by the Greeks, and
its degradation by the Romans 3. A number of documents
deal with the choice of a pantomimus to represent the prasini
or ' Greens/ and show that the rivalry of the theatre-factions

1 Cassiodorus, Variae, iii. 51 xv. 12. I ' cruenta spectacula in
'quantum histrionibus rara con- otio civili et domestica quiete non
stantia honestumque votum, tanto placent; quapropter omnino gladia-
pretiosior est, cum in eis probabilis tores esse prohibemus (325).'
monstratur affectus ' ; this is illus- 3 Cassiodorus, Far. iv. 51. Of
trated by the conduct of one the mime is said ' mimus etiam,
'Thomas Auriga'; Var.\\. 8 ' Sa- qui nunc modo derisui habetur,
binus auriga . . . quamvis histrio tanta Philistionis cautela repertus
honesta nos supplicatione per- est uteius actus poneretur in litteris'
movit ' ; Var. vi. 4 ' tanta enim est (cf. p. 4, n. 1) ; of the pantomime,
vis gloriosae veritatis, ut etiam in ' orchestrarum loquacissimae ma-
rebus scenicis aequitas desideretur.' nus, linguosi digiti, silentium cla-

2 Schaff, v. 122 ; Dill, 55. The mosum, expositio tacita.'
rescript of Constantine is C. Th.

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 21

remained as fierce as it had been in the days of Bathyllus and
Pylades. Helladius is given the preference over Thorodon,
and a special proclamation exhorts the people to keep the
peace 1. Still more interesting is the formula, preserved by
Cassiodorus, which was used in the appointment of the
tribunus voluptatam, an official whom we have already come
across in the rescripts of the emperors of the fourth century.
This is so characteristic, in its contemptuous references to the
nature of the functions which it confers, of the whole German
attitude in the matter of spectacula, that it seems worth while
to print it in an appendix2. The passages hitherto quoted
from the Variae all seem to belong to the period between 507
and 511, when Cassiodorus was quaestor and secretary to
Theodoric at Rome. A single letter written about 533 in the
reign of Athalaric shows that the populace was still looking
to its Gothic rulers for spectacula, and still being gratified 3.
Beyond this the Roman theatre has not been traced. The
Goths passed in 553, and Italy was reabsorbed in the Empire.
In 568 came the Lombards, raw Germans who had been but
little under southern influence, and were far less ready than
their predecessors to adopt Roman manners. Rome and
Ravenna alone remained as outposts of the older civilization,
the latter under an exarch appointed from Constantinople, the
former under its bishop. At Ravenna the theatre may con-
ceivably have endured ; at Rome, the Rome of Gregory the
Great, it assuredly did not. An alleged mention of a theatre
at Barcelona in Spain during the seventh century resolves
itself into either a survival of pagan ritual or a bull-fight4.

1 Cassiodorus, Var. i. 20, 31-3. cision to the bishop. He says,

2 Cf. Appendix A. ' obiectum hoc, quod de ludis thea-

3 Cassiodorus, Var. ix. 21 'opes triis tauroram, scilicet, ministerio
nostras scaenicis pro populi oble- sis adeptus nulli videtur incertum ;
ctatione largimur.' quis non videat quod etiam videre

4 Du Meril, Or. Lat. 13, quotes poeniteat.' But I cannot find in
from Mariana, Hist, of Spain, vi. 3, Sisebut or in Mariana, who writes
the statement that Sisebut, king of Spanish, the words quoted by Du
the Visigoths, deposed Eusebius, Meril. For ' taurorum ' one MS.
bishop ot Barcelona, in 618, ' quod has ' phanorum.' I suspect the
in theatro quaedam agi concessisset former is right. A bull-fight sounds
quae ex vana deorum superstitione so Spanish, and such festivals of
traducta aures Christianae abhor- heathen origin as the Kalends (cf.
rere videantur.' Sisebuthus, Efi. vi ch. xi) were not held in theatres.
(P. L. lxxx. 370), conveys his de- A. Gassier, Lc Theatre espagnol

22 MINSTRELSY

Isidore of Seville has his learned chapters on the stage, but
they are written in the imperfect tense, as of what is past and
gone 1. The bishops and the barbarians had triumphed.

(1898), 14, thinks such a festival is (ch. xiii). In any case there is no

intended ; if so, ' theatriis' probably question of ' scenici.'
means not literally, 'in a theatre,' J Isidorus Hispalencis, Etymo-

but merely 'theatrical'; cf. the 'ludi logiarum (600-636), xviii. 42 (P. L.

theatrales' of the Feast of Fools lxxxii. 658).

CHAPTER II

MIMUS AND SCOP

[Bibliographical Note (for chs. ii-iv). — By far the best account of
minstrelsy is the section on Les Propagateurs des Chansons de Gestes in
vol. ii of L. Gautier, Les Epope'es franqaiscs (2nd ed. 1892), bk. ii, chs.
xvii-xxi. It may be supplemented by the chapter devoted to the subject
in J. Bedier, Les Fabliaux (2nd ed. 1895), and by the dissertation of
E. Freymond, Jongleurs und Menestrals (Halle, 1S83). I have not seen
A. Olrik, Middel alder ens vandrende Spillemcend {Opuscula Philolegica,
Copenhagen, 1887). Some German facts are added by F. Vogt, Lebcn
und Dichten der deutschen Spielleute im Mittelalter (1S76), and A. Schultz,
Das hqfische Leben- zur Zeit der Minnesinger (2nd ed. 1889), i. 565, who
gives further references. The English books are not good, and probably
the most reliable account of English minstrelsy is that in the following
pages ; but materials may be found in J. Strutt, Sports and Pastimes of
the People of England (1801, ed. W. Hone, 1830) ; T. Percy, Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry (ed. H. B. Wheatley, 1876, ed. Schroer, 1889);
J. Ritson, Ancient English Metrical Romances (1802), Ancient Songs
and Ballads (1829) ; W. Chappell, Old English Popular Music (ed. H. E.
Wooldridge, 1893) ; F. J. Crowest, The Story of British Music, from the
Earliest Times to the Tudor Period (1896); J.J. Jusserand, English Way-
faring Li fe in the Middle Ages (trans. L.T. Smith, 4th ed. 1892). The early
English data are discussed'by R. Merbot, Aesthetische Studien zur angel-
sachsischen Poesie (1883 ), and F. M. Padelford, Old English Musical Terms
(1899). F. B. Gummere, The Beginnings of Poetry (1901), should be con-
sulted on the relations of minstrelsy to communal poetry ; and other special
points are dealt with by O. Hubatsch, Die lateinischen Vagantenlieder des
Mittelalters (1870) ; G. Maugras, Les Comddiens hors la Loi (1887), and
H. Lavoix, La Musique an Siecle de Saint-Louis (in G. Raynaud, Recueil
de Motets francais, 1883, vol. ii). To the above list of authorities should
of course be added the histories of literature and of the drama enu-
merated in the General Bibliographical Note.]

The fall of the theatres by no means implied the complete
extinction of the scenici. They had outlived tragedy and
comedy : they were destined to outlive the stage itself.
Private performances, especially of pantomimi and other
dancers, had enjoyed great popularity under the Empire,
and had become an invariable adjunct of all banquets and
other festivities. At such revels, as at the decadence of the
theatre and of public morals generally, the graver pagans had

24 MINSTRELSY

looked askance l : the Church naturally included them in its
universal condemnation of spectacula. Chrysostom in the
East2, Jerome in the West3, are hostile to them, and 1
canon of the fourth-century council of Laodicea, requiring
the clergy who might be present at weddings and similar
rejoicings to rise and leave the room before the actors were
introduced, was adopted by council after council and took its
place as part of the ecclesiastical law 4. The permanence of
the regulation proves the strength of the habit, which indeed
the Church might ban, but was not able to subdue, and which
seems to have commended itself, far more than the theatre, to
Teutonic manners. Such irregular performances proved a
refuge for the dispossessed scenici. Driven from their theatres,
they had still a vogue, not only at banquets, but at popular
merry-makings or wherever in street or country they could
gather together the remnant of their old audiences. Adversity
and change of masters modified many of their characteristics.
The pantomiini, in particular, fell upon evil times. Their
subtle art had had its origin in an exquisite if corrupt taste,
and adapted itself with difficulty to the ruder conditions of
the new civilizations 5. The mimi had always appealed to
a common and gross humanity. But even they must now
rub shoulders and contend for denarii with jugglers and with
rope-dancers, with out-at-elbows gladiators and beast-tamers.
More than ever they learnt to turn their hand to anything
that might amuse ; learnt to tumble, for instance ; learnt to
tell the long stories which the Teutons loved. Nevertheless,
in essentials they remained the same ; still jesters and buffoons,

1 Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 1. 5,9. Cone, of Aix-la-Chapelle (816) c. 83

2 Chrysostom, Horn, in Ep. ad (Mansi, vii. 1361); and finally, C. I.
Col. cap. 1, Horn. i. cc. 5, 6 (P. G. Can. hi. 5. 37 'non oportet ministros
lxii. 306). altaris vel quoslibet clericos specta-

3 Jerome, Ep. 117 (P. L. xxii. culis aliquibus, quae aut in nuptiis
957) 'difficile inter epulas servatur aut scenis exhibentur, interesse,sed
pudicitia'; cf. Dill, no. ante, quam thymelici ingrediantur,

* Cone, of Laodicea (t 343-81) surgere eos de eonvivio et abire.' It

can.54(Mansi,ii.574)oT(oi<Seu'epar£- is noteworthy that 'scenis' here

Koi/s i] K.\rjptKois tivus decoplas deaptlf translates deinvois.
tv ydfiois r) delnvois, aXXa npo tov b Muratori Antiq.Ital.Aled.Aev.

elaepxetrdai roiis dv^eXinovs iyeipecrOat. ii. 847, traces the pantomimi in the

avrois Kal ufaxcopelv. Cf. Cone, of Italian mattaccini.
Braga (iS72) c. 60 (Mansi, v. 912),

MIMUS AND SC6P 25

still irrepressible, still obscene. In little companies of two
or three, they padded the hoof along the roads, travelling
from gathering to gathering, making their own welcome in
castle or tavern, or, if need were, sleeping in some grange or
beneath a wayside hedge in the white moonlight. They were,
in fact, absorbed into that vast body of nomad entertainers on
whom so much of the gaiety of the Middle Ages depended.
They became ioculatores, jongleurs, minstrels1.

The features of the minstrels as we trace them obscurely
from the sixth to the eleventh century, and then more clearly
from the eleventh to the sixteenth, are very largely the
features of the Roman mimi as they go under, whelmed in
the flood which bore away Latin civilization. But to regard
them as nothing else than mimi would be a serious mistake.
On another side they have a very different and a far more
reputable ancestry. Like other factors in mediaeval society,
they represent a merging of Latin and the Teutonic elements.
They inherit the tradition of the mimns : they inherit also
the tradition of the German scop". The earliest Teutonic
poetry, so far as can be gathered, knew no scop. As will be
shown in a later chapter, it was communal in character, closely
bound up with the festal dance, or with the rhythmic move-
ments of labour. It was genuine folk-song, the utterance
of no select caste of singers, but of whoever in the ring of
worshippers or workers had the impulse and the gift to link
the common movements to articulate words. At the festivals
such a spokesman would be he who, for whatever reason, took
the lead in the ceremonial rites, the vates, germ at once of
priest and bard. The subject-matter of communal song was
naturally determined by the interests ruling on the occasions
when it was made. That of daily life would turn largely on
the activities of labour itself: that of the high days on the
emotions of religion, feasting, and love which were evoked by
the primitive revels of a pastoral or agricultural folk.

Presently the movements of the populations of Europe
brought the Germanic tribes, after separating from their
Scandinavian kinsmen, into contact with Kelts, with Huns,

1 Cf. Appendix B. Romania (1876), 260 ; G. Paris,

2 Ten Brink, i. 11 ; P. Meyer in 36 ; Gautier, ii. 6 ; Kogel, i. 2. 191.

26 MINSTRELSY

with the Roman Empire, and, in the inevitable recoil, with
each other. Then for the first time war assumed a prerogative
place in their life. To war, the old habits and the old poetry
adapted themselves. Tiwaz, once primarily the god of bene-
ficent heaven, became the god of battles. The chant of prayer
before the onset, the chant of triumph and thanksgiving after
the victory, made themselves heard \ From these were dis-
engaged, as a distinct species of poetry, songs in praise of the
deeds and deaths of great captains and popular heroes. Tacitus
tells us that poetry served the Germans of his day for both
chronology and history 2. Jordanis, four centuries later, has
a similar account to give of the Ostrogoths 3. Arminius, the
vanquisher of a Roman army, became the subject of heroic
songs4: Athalaric has no higher word of praise for Gensimund
than cantabilis5. The glories of Alboin the Lombard6, of
Charlemagne himself7, found celebration in verse, and Charle-
magne was at the pains to collect and record the still earlier
cantilenae which were the chronicle of his race. Such his-
torical cantilenae, mingled with more primitive ones of mytho-
logical import, form the basis of the great legendary epics 8.
But the process of epic-making is one of self-conscious and de-
liberate art, and implies a considerable advance from primitive
modes of literary composition. No doubt the earliest heroic
cantilenae were still communal in character. They were rondes
footed and sung at festivals by bands of young men and maidens.
Nor was such folk-song quick to disappear. Still in the

1 Tacitus, Ann. i. 65 ; iv. 47 ; adhuc barbaras apud gentes.'
Hist. n. 22; iv. 18; v. 15 ; Germ. 5 Cassiodorus, Far. viii. 9.
3 ; Ammianus Marcellinus, xvi. 12. 6 Kdgel, i. 1. 122, quoting Paulus

43 ; xxxi. 7. 1 1 ; Vegetius, de re Diaconus, i. 27.
militari, iii. 18; cf. Kogel, i. 1. 12, 7 Kogel, i. 1. 122; i. 2. 220;

58, in; Miillenhoff, Germania, Gautier, i. 72 ; G. Paris, Hist. Poet.

ch. 3. The barditus or barritus of de Charlemagne, 50 ; cf. Poeta Saxo

the Germans, whatever the name (1890) in M. G. H.Scriptores, i. 268

exactly means, seems to have been 'est quoque iam notum; vulgaria

articulate, and not a mere noise. carmina magnis laudibus eius avos

• Tacitus, Germ. 2 'quod unum et proavos celebrant. Pippinos,

apud lllos memoriae et annalium Karolos, Hludiwicos et Theodricos,

genus est.' et Carlomannos Hlothariosque ca-

Jordanis, de orig. Getarian (in nunt.'
M. G. H.), c. 4 'in priscis eorum 8 Gautier, i. 37 ; Grober, ii. 1.447.

carminibus pene storico ritu in com- The shades of opinion on the exact

mune recohtur.' relation of the cantilenae to the

Tacitus, Ann. ii. 88 ' canitur chansons de gestes are numerous.

MIMUS AND SC6P

eleventh century the deeds of St. William of Orange resounded
amongst the chori iuvenum1 ; and spinning- room and village
green were destined to hear similar strains for many centuries
more 2. But long before this the cantilenae had entered upon
another and more productive course of development : they
were in the mouths, not only of the folk, but also of a body
of professional singers, the fashioners of the epic that was
to be 3. Like heroic song itself, the professional singers owed

1 Vita S. Willelmi {Acta SS.
Mali, vi. 80 1 ) ' qui chori iuve-
num, qui conventus populorum,
praecipue militum ac nobilium
virorum, quae vigiliae sanctorum
dulce non resonant, et modulatis
vocibus decantant qualis et quantus
fuerit ' ; cf. Gautier, i. 66. The
merest fragments of such folk-song
heroic cantilenae are left. A German
one, the Ludwigslied, on the battle
of Saucourt (881) is in Miillenhoff
und Scherer, Denkmaler deutscher
Poesie unci Prosa (1892), N°. xi ; cf.
Kogel, i. 2. 86 ; Gautier, i. 62. And
a few lines of a (probably) French
one on an event in the reign of
Clotaire (I620) are translated into
Latin in Helgarius (r 853—76),
Vita S. Faronis (Historiens de
France, iii. 505 ; Mabillon, Acta
SS. Benedictinorum, ii. 610). Hel-
garius calls the song a ' carmen
rusticum' and says 'ex qua victoria
carmen publicum iuxta rusticitatem
per omnium pene volitabat ora ita
canentium, feminaeque choros inde
plaudendo componebant.' The
Vita S. Faronis in Acta SS. lx.
612, which is possibly an abridge-
ment of Helgarius, says ' carmine
rustico . . . suavi cantilena de-
cantabatur ' ; cf. Gautier, i. 47 ;
Grober, ii. 1. 446.

2 Ten Brink, i. 148, quotes from
Hist. Fly, ii. 27 (tl 166), a fragment
of a song on Canute, ' quae usque
hodie in choris publice cantantur,'
and mentions another instance from
Win. of Malmesbury. Cf. de Gestis
Herewardi Saxonis (Michel, Chron.
Anglo-Norm. ii. 6) ' mulieres et
puellae de eo in choris canebant,'
and for Scotland the song on Ban-
nockburn ( 1 3 1 4) which, says Fabyan,

Chronicle (ed. Ellis), 420, 'was after
many days sungyn in dances, in
carolles of ye maydens and myn-
strellys of Scotlande ' ; cf. also
Gummere, B. P. 265.

3 It is important to recognize that
the cantilenae of the folk and those
of the professional singers existed
side by side. Both are, I think,
implied in the account of the St.
William songs quoted above : the
folk sung them in choruses and on
wake-days, the professional singers
in the assemblies of warriors. At
any rate, in the next (twelfth) cent.
Ordericus Vitalis, vi. 3 (ed. Soc.
de V Hist, de France, iii. 5), says of
the same Willelmus,T Vulgo canitur
a ioculatoribus de illo cantilena.'
M. Gautier (ii. 6) will not admit the
filiation of the ioculatores to the
scopas, and therefore he is led to
suppose (i. 78) that the cantilenae
and vulgaria carmina were all folk-
song up to the end of the tenth cent,
and that then the ioculatores got
hold of them and lengthened them
into chansons dc gestes. But, as we
shall see (p. 34), the Franks certainly
had their professional singers as
early as Clovis, and these cannot
well have sung anything but heroic
lays. Therefore the cantilenae and
vulgaria carmina of the Mero-
vingian and Carolingian periods
may have been either folk-song, or
scop-song, or, more probably, both
(Grober, ii. 1 . 449). Cantilena really
means no more than 'chant' of any
kind ; it includes ecclesiastical
chant. So Alcuin uses it (e. g. Ep.
civ in Diimmler, ii. 169) ; and what
Gautier, ii. 65, prints as a folk-song
cantilena of S. Eulalia is treated
by Grober, ii. l. 442, as a sequence.

28 MINSTRELSY

their origin to war, and to the prominence of the individual,
the hero, which war entailed. Around the person of a great
leader gathered his individual following or comitattis, bound
to him by ties of mutual loyalty, by interchange of service
and reward K Amongst the comitattis room was found for
one who was no spearman, but who, none the less honoured
for that, became the poet of the group and took over from the
less gifted chorus the duty if celebrating the praises of the
chieftain. These he sung to the accompaniment, no longer
of flying feet, but of the harp, struck when the meal was over
in tent or hall. Such a harper is the characteristically Ger-
manic type of professional entertainer. He has his affinities
with the Demodokos of a Homeric king. Rich in dignities
and guerdons, sitting at the foot of the leader, consorting on
equal terms with the warriors, he differs wholly from the
scenicus in/amis, who was the plaything and the scorn of
Rome. Precisely when the shifting of social conditions brought
him into being it is hard to say. Tacitus dees not mention
him, which is no proof, but a presumption, that amongst the
tribes on the frontier he had not yet made his appearance
in the first century of the Empire. By the fifth century he
was thoroughly established, and the earliest records point to
his existence at least as early as the fourth. These are not to
be found in Latin sources, but in those early English poems
which, although probably written in their extant forms after the
invasion of these islands, seem to date back in substance to
the age when the Angles still dwelt in a continental home around
the base of the Jutish peninsula. The English remained to a
comparatively late stage of their history remote from Roman
influence, and it is in their literature that both the original
development of the Teutonic scop and his subsequent con-
tamination by the Roman mimus can most easily be studied.
The earliest of all English poems is almost certainly
Widsith, the 'far-traveller.' This has been edited and
interpolated in Christian England, but the kernel of it is
heathen and continental 2. It is an autobiographic sketch
of the life of Widsith, who was himself an actual or ideal scop,
or rather gleomon, for the precise term scop is not used in the
1 Gummere, G. 0. 260. 2 Grein, i. 1.

MIMUS AND SCOP 29

poem. Widsith was of the Myrgings, a small folk who dwelt
hard by the Angles. In his youth he went with Ealhhild, the
1 weaver of peace,' on a mission to Eormanric the Ostrogoth.
Eormanric is the Hermanric of legend, and his death in
37 5 A.D. gives an approximate date to the events narrated.
Then Widsith became a wanderer upon the face of the earth,
one who could ' sing and say a story' in the ' mead-hall.' He
describes the nations and rulers he has known. Eormanric
gave him a collar of beaten gold, and Guthhere the Burgundian
a ring. He has been with Caesar, lord of jocund cities, and
has seen Franks and Lombards, Finns and Huns, Picts and
Scots, Hebrews, Indians, Egyptians, Medes and Persians. At
the last he has returned to the land of the Myrgings, and with
his fellow Scilling has sung loud to the harp the praises of
his lord Eadgils and of Ealhhild the daughter of Eadwine.
Eadgils has given him land, the inheritance of his fathers.
The poem concludes with an eulogy of the life of gleemen.
They wander through realm upon realm, voice their needs,
and have but to give thanks. In every land they find a lord
to whom songs are dear, and whose bounty is open to the
exalters of his name. Of less undeniable antiquity than Widsith
are the lines known as the Complaint of Deor. These touch
the seamy side of the singer's life. Deor has been the scop
of the Heodenings many winters through. But one more
skilled, Heorrenda by name — the Horant of the Gudrun
saga — has outdone him in song, and has been granted the
land-right that once was Deor's. He finds his consolation in
the woes of the heroes of old. ' They have endured : may
not I endure1?' The outline drawn in Widsith and in Deor
is completed by various passages in the epic of Beowulf ', which
may be taken as representing the social conditions of the sixth
or early seventh century. In Heorot, the hall of Hrothgar,
there was sound of harp, the gleewood. Sweetly sang the
scop after the mead-bench. The lay was sung, the gleeman's
gyd told. Hrothgar's thanes, even Hrothgar himself, took
their turns to unfold the wondrous tale. On the other hand,
when a folk is in sorrow, no harp is heard, the glee-beam is
silent in the halls2. In these three poems, then, is fully
1 Grein, i. 278. a Beowulf, 89, 499, 869, 1064, 1 162, 2106, 2259, 2449.

30 MINSTRELSY

limned the singer of Teutonic heathenism. He is a man
of repute, the equal of thanes. He holds land, even the
land of his fathers. He receives gifts of gold from princes
for the praise he does them. As yet no distinction appears
between scop and gleomon. Widsith is at one time the resident
singer of a court ; at another, as the mood takes him, a wanderer
to the ends of the earth. And though the scop leads the song,
the warriors and the king himself do not disdain to take part
in it. This is noteworthy, because it gives the real measure
of the difference between the Teutonic and the Roman enter-
tainer. For a Nero to perform amongst the scenici was to
descend : for a Hrothgar to touch the harp was a customary
and an honourable act.

The singing did not cease when the English came to these
islands. The long struggle with the Britons which succeeded
the invasions assuredly gave rise to many new lays, both in
Northumbria and Wessex. ' England,' says Mr. Stopford
Brooke, ( was conquered to the music of verse, and settled
to the sound of the harp.' But though Alfred and Dunstan
knew such songs, they are nearly all lost, or only dimly
discerned as the basis of chronicles. At the end of the sixth
century, just as the conquest was completed, came Christianity.
The natural development of English poetry was to some
extent deflected. A religious literature grew up at the hands
of priests. Eadhelm, who, anticipating a notion of St. Francis
of Assisi, used to stand on a bridge as if he were a gleeman,
and waylay the folk as they hurried back from mass, himself
wrote pious songs. One of these, a carmen triviale, was still
sung in the twelfth century1. This was in Wessex. In
Northumbria, always the most literary district of early
England, the lay brother Caedmon founded a school of divine
poetry. But even amongst the disciples of Caedmon, some,
such as the author of the very martial Judith, seem to have
designed their work for the mead-hall as well as the monas-
tery2. And the regular scop by no means vanished. The
Wanderer , a semi-heathen elegiac poem of the early eighth

1 William of Malmesbury, de ... sensim inter ludicra verbis
gestis Pontif. Angl. (R. S.), 336 scripturarum insertis.'
' quasi artem cantitandi professum, 2 Grein, ii. 294.

MIMUS AND SCOP 31

century, seems to be the lament of a scop driven from his
haunts, not by Christianity, but by the tumults of the day1.
The great poet of the next generation, Cynewulf, himself
took treasure of appled gold in the mead-hall. A riddle
on 'the wandering singer' is ascribed to him2, and various
poems of his school on the fates or the crafts of man bear
witness to the continued existence of the class 3. With
the eighth century, except for the songs of war quoted
or paraphrased in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the extant
Early English poetry reaches a somewhat inexplicable end.
But history comes to the rescue, and enables us still to trace
the scop. It is in the guise of a harp-player that Alfred is
reported to have fooled the Danes, and Anlaf in his turn to
have fooled the Saxons 4 : and mythical as these stories may
be, they would not have even been plausible, had not the
presence of such folk by the camp-fire been a natural and
common event.

Certainly the scop survived heathenism, and many Christian
bishops and pious laymen, such as Alfred 5, were not ashamed
of their sympathy with secular song. Nevertheless, the enter-
tainers of the English folk did not find favour in the eyes of
the Church as a whole. The stricter ecclesiastics especially
attacked the practice of harbouring them in religious houses.
Decrees condemning this were made by the council on English
affairs which sat at Rome in 679 6, and by the council of
Clovesho in 747 7. Bede, writing at about the latter date on the

1 Grein, i. 284. A similar poem book was a'Saxonicum poematicae
is The Sea-farer (Grein, i. 290). artis librum,' and 'Saxonicos libros

2 Cynewulf, Elene, 1259 (Grein, recitareetmaximecarminaSaxonica
ii. 135); Riddle lxxxix (Grein, iii. memoriter discere non desinebat.'
J. 183). But A. S. Cook, The Christ 6 Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 133 'Statui-
(1900), lv, lxxxiii, thinks that Cyne- mus atque decernimus ut episcopi
wulf was a thane, and denies him vel quicunque ecclesiastici ordinis
the Riddle. religiosam vitam professi sunt . . .

3 Cynewulf, Christ (ed. Gollancz), nee citharoedas habeant, vel quae-
668 ; Gifts of Men (Grein, iii. 1. 140); cunque symphoniaca, nee quoscun-
Fates of Men (Grein, iii. I. 148). que iocos vel ludos ante se permit-

* William of Malmesbury, Gesta tant, quia omnia haec disciplina

Reg. Angl. (R. S.), i. 126, 143. sanctae ecclesiae sacerdotes fideles

Asserius, de rebus gestis A If redi suos habere non sinit.'

(Petrie-Sharp, Mon. Hist. Brit. i. 7 Ibid. iii. 369 (can. 20) ' ut

473). Alfred was slow to learn as a monasteria . . . non sint ludicra-

boy, but loved ' Saxonica poemata,' rum artium receptacula, hoc est,

and remembered them. His first poetarum, citharistarum, musico-

MINSTRELSY

condition of church affairs in Northumbria complains of those
who make mirth in the dwellings of bishops * ; and the com-
plaint is curiously illustrated by a letter of Gutbercht, abbot
of Newcastle, to an episcopal friend on the continent, in which
he asks him for a citharista competent to play upon the cithara
or rotta which he already possesses 2. At the end of the eighth
century, Alcuin wrote a letter to Higbald, bishop of Lindisfarne,
warning him against the snares of citharistae and histriones 3 :
and some two hundred years later, when -Edgar and Dunstan4
were setting themselves to reform the religious communities
of the land, the favour shown to such ribald folk was one of
the abuses which called for correction 5. This hostile attitude
of the rulers of the Church is not quite explained by anything
in the poetry of the scopas, so far as it is left to us. This had
very readily exchanged its pagan for a Christian colouring: it
cannot be fairly accused of immorality or even coarseness, and

rum, scurrorum.' Can. 12 shows
a fear of the influence of the scop
on ritual : 'ut presbyteri saecularium
poetarum modo in ecclesia non
garriant, ne tragico sono sacrorum
verborum compositionem et dis-
tinctionem corrumpant vel con-
fundant.' Cf. the twelfth-century
account of church singers who used
' histrionicis quibusdam gestis,'
quoted by Jusserand,i:.Z. 455, from
the Speculum Caritatis of Abbot
./Elred of Rievaulx.

1 Bede to Egbert in 734 (Haddan-
Stubbs, iii. 315) 'de quibusdam
episcopis fama vulgatum est . . .
quod ipsi . . . secum habeant . . .
illos qui risui, iocis, fabulis . . .
subigantur.'

2 Gutberchtus to Lullus in 764
(Diimmler, Epist. Mer. et Car. in
M. G. H. i. 406).

3 Alcuin, Ep. 124 (797) 'melius
est pauperes edere de mensa tua
quam istriones vel luxuriosos quos-
libet . . . verba Dei legantur in
sacerdotali convivio. ibi decet lec-
torem audiri, non citharistam ; ser-
mones patrum, non carmina gen-
tium, quid Hinieldus cum Christo ?
angusta est domus ; utrosque te-
nere non poterit . . . voces legentium

audire in domibus tuis, non riden-
tium turbam in plateis.' The allu-
sion to a lost epic cycle of Hiniel-
dus (Ingeld) is highly interesting;
on it cf. Haupt in Z.f d. A. xv. 314.

4 The Vitae of Dunstan (Stubbs,
Memorials of Dunstan, R. S. II, 20,
80, 257) record that he himself
learnt the 'ars citharizandi.' One
day he hung ' citharam suam quam
lingua paterna hearpam vocamus '
on the wall, and it discoursed an
anthem by itself. Anthems, doubt-
less, were his mature recreation, but
as a young clerk he was accused
' non saluti animae profutura sed
avitae gentilitatis vanissima didi-
cisse carmina, et historiarum frivo-
volas colere incantationum nae-
nias.'

5 Anglo-Saxon Canons of Edgar
(906), can. 58 (Wilkins, i. 228), sic
Latine, ' docemus artem, ut nullus
sacerdos sit cerevisarius, nee aliquo
modo scurram agat secum ipso, vel
aliis ' ; Oratio Edgari Regis (969)
pro monachatu propaganda (Wil-
kins, i. 246) ' ut iam domus cleri-
corum putentur . . . conciliabulum
histrionum . . . mimi cantant et sal-
tans'

MIMUS AND SC6P 33

the Christian sentiment of the time is not likely to have been
much offended by the prevailing theme of battle and deeds of
blood. The probable explanation is a double one. There is
the ascetic tendency to regard even harmless forms of secular
amusement as barely compatible with the religious life. And
there is the fact, which the language of the prohibitions them-
selves makes plain, that a degeneration of the old Teutonic
gleemen had set in. To singing and harping were now added
novel and far less desirable arts. Certainly the prohibitions
make no exception for poetae and musici ; but the full strength
of their condemnation seems to be directed against scurrae and
their ioca, and against the mimi and histriones who danced as
well as sang. These are new figures in English life, and they
point to the fact that the merging of the Teutonic with the
Latin entertainer had begun. To some extent, the Church
itself was responsible for this. The conversion of England
opened the remote islands to Latin civilization in general:
and it is not to be wondered at, that the mimi, no less than
the priests, flocked into the new fields of enterprise. If this
was the case already in the eighth century, we can hardly
doubt that it was still more so during the next two hundred
years of which the literary records are so scanty. Such
a view is supported by the numerous miniatures of dancers
and tumblers, jugglers and bear-leaders, in both Latin and
Early English manuscripts of this period \ and by the glosses
which translate such terms as mtmus, iocista, scurra, panto-
mimus by gligmon, reserving scop for the dignified poeta'1.

1 Strutt, 172 and passim. poet is opposed to the skirnun or

2 Wright-Wiilker, 150, 311, 539. tfimard, scurra or mimus. The
A synonym for scop is leodivyrhta. buffoon is looked askance at by the
On 188 lyricus is glossed scop. But dignified Scandinavian men of let-
the distinctive use of scop is not ters (Saxo Grammaticus, Hist.
in all cases maintained, e.g. tragi- Datiica, transl. Elton, vi. 186) ; and
cus vel comicus unwurfi scop (188), Keltic bardism stands equally aloof
comicus scop (283), comicus id est from the c/erwr(d.p- 76). Of course
qui comedia sen bit, can tat or vel Kelts and Teutons might conceiv-
artifex canticorum seculorum, idem ably have developed their buffoons
satyricus, i. scop, ioculator, poeta for themselves, independently of
(206). Other western peoples in Roman influence, but so far as the
contact with Latin civilization came Germans go, Tacitus, Germ. 24,
to make the same classification of knows no spectaculum but the
poet and buffoon. Wackernagel, i. sweorda-geldc or sword-dance (ch.
5 1 , says that the German liuderi or ix).

CHAMBERS. I D

34 MINSTRELSY

This distinction I regard as quite a late one, consequent
upon the degeneracy introduced by mimi from south Europe
into the lower ranks of the gleemen. Some writers, indeed,
think that it existed from the beginning, and that the scop
was always the resident court poet, whereas the gleomon was
the wandering singer, often a borrower rather than a maker of
songs, who appealed to the smaller folk1. But the theory
is inconsistent with the data of Widsith. The poet there
described is sometimes a wanderer, sometimes stationary.
He is evidently at the height of his profession, and has sung
before every crowned head in Europe, but he calls himself
a gleomon. Nor does the etymology of the words scop and
gleomon suggest any vital difference of signification 2.

The literary records of the continental Teutons are far
scantier than those of the English. But amongst them also
Latin and barbaric traditions seem to have merged in the
ioculator. Ancestral deeds were sung to the harp, and there-
fore, it may be supposed, by a scdp, and not a c/iorus, before
the Ostrogoths in Italy, at the beginning of the sixth century3.
In the year 507 Clovis the Frank sent to Theodoric for
a citharoedus trained in the musical science of the South, and
Boethius was commissioned to make the selection 4. On the
other hand, little as the barbarians loved the theatre, the mimi
and scurrae of the conquered lands seem to have tickled their
fancy as they sat over their wine. At the banquet with which
Attila entertained the imperial ambassadors in 448, the guests

1 Brooke, i. 12 ; Merbot, n. The are from the same root seg (Kogel,
gleomon, according to Merbot, be- i. I. 140). Gleomon is from gleo,
came mixed with the plegman or gleow, gliw, glig = ' glee,' ' mirth.'
mimus. In the glosses pleja= ludus The harp, in Beowulf and elsewhere,
in the widest sense, including ath- is the 'glee-beam,' 'glee-wood.'
letics; and plej-stowe = amphi- 3 Jordanis, de hist. Get. (in
^m/rz*;«(Wright-Wiilker, 342). A M.G.H.), c. 5 'ante quos etiam
synonym of pleja is the etymo- cantu maiorum facta modulatio-
logical equivalent of ludus, lac (cf. nibus citharisque cantabant.'

ch. viii). Spil is not A. S., sfiilian, * Cassiodorus, Variae, ii. 40, 41.

a loan-word (Kogel, i. 1. 11). Kogel, i. 1. 130, thinks that the pro-

2 Scop, the O. H. G. scop/ or scof fessional singer, as distinct from the
is the ' shaper,' ' maker,' from ska- chorus, first became known to the
pan, 'to make'; it is only a West- Franks on this occasion. But one
German word, and is distinct from may rather infer from Theodoric's
scop/, a 'scoff,' 'mock,' and also letter to Boethius that the citha-
from O.N. skald. This is not West- roedus was to replace barbaric by
German, but both ' sing ' and ' say ' civilized music.

MIMUS AND SC6P 35

were first moved to martial ardour and to tears by the recital
of ancient deeds of prowess, and then stirred to laughter by
the antics of a Scythian and a Moorish buffoon l. Attila
was a Hun and no German ; but the Vandals who invaded
Africa in 429 are recorded to have taken to the spcctacula so
extravagantly popular there 2, and Sidonius tells how mimici
sales, chastened in view of barbaric conceptions of decency,
found a place in the festivities of another Theodoric, king from
462 to 466 of the Visigoths in Gaul 3. Three centuries later,
under Charlemagne, the blending of both types of entertainer
under the common designation of iocidator seems to be .com-
plete. And, as in contemporary England, the animosity of
the Church to the scenici is transferred wholesale to the
ioculatores, without much formal attempt to discriminate
between the different grades of the profession. Alcuin may
perhaps be taken as representing the position of the more
rigid disciplinarians on this point. His letter to the English
bishop, Higbald, does not stand alone. In several others he
warns his pupils against the dangers lurking in ludi and
spcctacula^, and he shows himself particularly exercised by

1 Priscus, Hist. Goth. (ed. Bonn) feriatur.' There are no musicians,
205 e'myevopevys 8e eenrepas Sq8es 'rege solum illis fidibus delenito,
avj](p8r]crav, 860 8e avriKpv rov 'At- quibus non minus mulcet virtus
rrjXa irapeXdovres fiapfiapoi qa-para animum quam cantus auditum.'
TTenoirjptva TXeyou, pinas avTov Kal ras In Carm. xii Sidonius mentions
Kara noXepov qSovres operas' es ots Gothic songs, without specifying
ol rrjs fvco^las mrffikeirov, na\ ot pev whether they are professional or
TjSovro rois Troirjpaaiv, ol 8e ru>v rroXe- choric.

pav avapipvr)<jK6psvoi 8ir]ye'ipovTO rols 4 Alcuin, Ep. eclxxxi (793-804),
(ppovTjpao-iv, a'XAoi Se e'xupow es 8d- to a disciple in Italy, 'melius est
Kpva, oiv vn6 rov xP°V0V w@*v€l T° Deo placere quam histrionibus, pau-
craipa Kal r)<rvxdCeiv 6 dvpos rjvayKa- perum habere curam quam mimo-
£«to. pera be to. uapara "2kv6t)s tis rum'; Ep. ecl (t8oi), to the monks
Tvape\6ujv (ppevoffkafir]s, . . . is yeXara of Fulda, ' non sint [adulescentuli]
Trdvras napea-Kevaae napeXdelv. ped' luxuriosi, non ebrietati servientes,
bv . . . Zepaav 6 Mavpov<rios . . . ttuv- non contemptuosi, non inanes se-
ra? . . . es ao-fieo-Tov opprjaai yeXcora quentes ludos ' ; Ep. ccxliv (tSoi),
7rap((TKevacre, ttXtjv 'Att^Xo. Cf. Gib- to Fredegis, master of the palace
bon, iii. 440; Hodgkin, ii. 86; school, ' non venlant coronatae co-
Kogel, i. 1. 114. lumbae ad fenestras tuas, quae

2 Procopius, de bell. Vandal, ii. volant per cameras palatii, nee equi
6 ; Victor Vitensis, de persec. Van- indomiti inrumpant ostia camerae ;
dal. i. 15. 47. nee tibi sit ursorum saltantium

3 Sidonius, Ep. i. 2. 9 ' sane in- cura, sed clericorum psallentium.'
tromittuntur, quanquam raro, inter The 'coronatae columbae' were
coenandum mimici sales, ita ut nul- Charlemagne's wanton daughters,
lus conviva mordacis linguae felle Dummler {Ep. Mer. et Car. ii. 541)

D 2

MINSTRELSY

the favour which they found with Angilbert, the literary and
far from strict-lived abbot of St. Richer K The influence
of Alcuin with Charlemagne was considerable, and so far
as ecclesiastical rule went, he had his way. A capitulary
(•f-787) excluded the Italian clergy from uncanonical sports 2.
In 789 bishops, abbots, and abbesses were forbidden to keep
ioculatoresz, and in 802 a decree applying to all in orders
required abstinence from idle and secular amusements 4.
These prohibitions were confirmed in the last year of Charle-
magne's reign (813) by the council of Tours5. But as enter-
tainers of the lay folk, the minstrels rather gained than lost
status at the hands of Charlemagne. Personally he took
a distinct interest in their performances. He treasured up
the heroic cantilenae of his race 6, and attempted in vain to

prints a responsio of Leidradus,
Abp. of Lyons, to Charles. This is
interesting, because it contrasts the
'mobilitas histrionum' which tempts
the eye, with the 'carmina poetarum
et comediarum mimorumque urba-
nitates et strophae,' which tempt
the ear. This looks as if histriones,
in the sense of pantomimic were
still known, but the piece also men-
tions 'teatrorum moles' and 'cir-
censes,' and is, I suspect, quite
antiquarian.

1 Ep. clxxv (799), to Adalhart,
Bp. of Old Corbey, 'Vereor, ne
Homerus [Angilbert] irascatur con-
tra cartam prohibentem spectacula
et diabolica figmenta. quae omnes
sanctae scripturae prohibent, in
tantum ut legebam sanctum dicere
Augustinum, " nescit homo, qui hi-
striones et mimos et saltatores in-
troducit in domum suam, quam
magna eos immundorum sequitur
turba spirituum." sed absit ut in
domo Christiana diabolus habeat
potestatem ' (the quotation from
Augustine cannot be identified) :
Ep. ccxxxvii (801), also to Adalhart,
' quod deemendatis moribus Homeri
mei scripsisti, satis placuit oculis
meis . . . unum fuit de histrionibus,
quorum vanitatibus sciebam non
parvum animae sui periculum im-
minere, quod mihi non placuit, . . .
mirumque mihi visum est, quomodo

tarn sapiens animus non intellexisset
reprehensibilia dignitati suae facere
et non laudabilia.' Angilbert also
seems to have had relations unbe-
coming an abbot with one of the
' coronatae columbae.'

2 Capit. of Mantua (Boretius, i.
195), can. 6 'neque ulla iocorum
genera ante se fieri permittant quae
contra canonum auctoritatem eve-
niunt.'

3 Capit. Generate (Boretius, i. 64 ;
P. L. xcvii. 188), c. 31 ' ut episcopi
et abbates et abbatissae cupplas
canum non habeant, nee falcones,
nee accipitres, nee ioculatores.' If
this is the carta of Alcuin's Ep.
clxxv, and I know of no other which
it can be, Diimmler's date for the
letter of 799 seems too late. Mabil-
lon's 791 is nearer the mark.

4 Capit. Gen. (Boretius, i. 96),
can. 23 'cleri . . . non inanis lusibus
vel conviviis secularibus vel canticis
vel luxuriosis usum habeant.'

5 Cone, of Tours (Mansi, xiv. 84),
c. 7 ' histrionum quoque turpium et
obscoenorum insolentiis iocorum et
ipsi [sacerdotes] animo effugere
caeterisque sacerdotibus effugienda
praedicare debent.'

6 Einhard, Vita Caroli Magni,
c. 29 ' barbara et antiquissima car-
mina, quibus veterum regum actus
et bella canebantur, scripsit me-
moriaeque mandavit.'

MIMUS AND SCOP

inspire the saevitia of his sons with his own enthusiasm for
these \ The chroniclers more than once relate how his
policy was shaped or modified by the chance words of a iocu-
lator or scurra 2. The later tradition of the jongleurs looked
back to him as the great patron of their order, who had given
them all the fair land of Provence in fee 3 : and it is clear that
the songs written at his court form the basis not only of the
chansons de gestes, but also, as we found to be the case with
the English war-songs, of many passages in the chronicles
themselves4. After Charlemagne's death the minstrels fell
for a time on evil days. Louis the Pious by no means shared
his father's love for them. He attempted to suppress the
cantilenae on which he had been brought up, and when the
mimi jested at court would turn away his head and refuse to
smile 5. To his reign may perhaps be ascribed a decree
contained in the somewhat dubious collection of Benedictus
Levita, forbidding idle dances, songs and tales in public places
and at crossways on Sundays 6, and another which continued

1 Alcuin, Ep. cxlix (798), to Char-
lemagne, ' ut puerorum saevitia ves-
trorum cuiuslibet carminis dulcedine
mitigaretur, voluistis ' ; Alcuin, who
doubtless had to manager Charle-
magne a little, is apparently to write
the poem himself.

2 Kogel, i. 2. 222. The Chroni-
con Novaliciense, iii. 10, describes
how after crossing Mt. Cenis in 773,
Charlemagne was guided by a Lom-
bard ioculator who sung a ' cantiun-
culam a se compositam de eadem
re rotando in conspectu suorum.'
As a reward the ioculator had all the
land over which his tuba sounded on
a hill could be heard. The Mona-
chus S. Calli ( JarFe", Bibl. rer. Germ.
iv), i. 13, tells how ^783) a scurra
brought about a reconciliation be-
tween Charlemagne and his brother-
in-law Uodalrich. The same writer
(i. 33) mentions an ' incomparabilis
clericus ' of the ' gloriosissimus Ka-
rolus,' who ' scientia . . . cantilenae
ecclesiasticae vel iocularis novaque
carminum compositione sive modu-
latione . . . cunctos praecelleret.'

3 Philippe Mouskes, de Poetis

Provincialibus (quoted Ducange,
s. v. leccator) :
1 Quar quant li buens Rois Karle-
maigne
Ot toute mise a son demaine
Provence, qui mult iert plentive
De vins, de bois, d'aigue, de rive,
As lecours, as menestreus,
Qui sont auques luxurieus,
Le donna toute et departi.'
* Kogel, i. 2. 220.
6 Theganus, de gesiisLudoviciPii
(M. G. H. Scriptores, ii. 594), c. 19
' Poetica carmina gentilia, quae in
iuventute didicerat, respuit, nee
legere nee audire nee docere voluit,'
and ' nunquam in risu exaltavit
vocem suam, nee quando in festivi-
tatibus ad laetitiam populi proce-
debant thymelici, scurrae, et mimi
cum choraulis et citharistis ad men-
sam coram eo, tunc ad mensuram
ridebat populus coram eo, ille nun-
quam vel denies candidos suos in
risu ostendit.' The 'carmina gen-
tilia,' so much disliked by Louis,
were probably Frankish and not
classic poems.
6 Benedictus Levita, vi. 205

MINSTRELSY

for the benefit of the minstrels the legal incapacity of the
Roman sccnici, and excluded histriones and scurrae from all
privilege of pleading in courts of justice 1.

The ill-will of a Louis the Pious could hardly affect the hold
which the minstrels had established on society. For good or
for bad, they were part of the mediaeval order of things. But
their popularity had to maintain itself against an undying
ecclesiastical prejudice. They had succeeded irrevocably to the
heritage of hate handed down from the scenici infantes. To be
present at their performances was a sin in a clerk, and merely
tolerated in a layman. Largesse to them was declared tanta-
mount to robbery of the poor2. It may be fairly said that
until the eleventh century at least the history of minstrelsy is
written in the attacks of ecclesiastical legislators, and in the
exultant notices of monkish chroniclers when this or that
monarch was austere enough to follow the example of Louis
the Pious, and let the men of sin go empty away 3. Through-
out the' Middle Ages proper the same standpoint was officially
maintained4. The canon law, as codified by Gratian, treats

(M. G. H. Leges, ii. 2. 83), ' ne in illo
sancto die vanis fabulis aut locu-
tionibus sive cantationibus vel sal-
tationibus stando in biviis et plateis
ut solet inserviant.' On this collec-
tion see Schaff, v. 272.

1 This capitulary is of doubtful
date, but belongs to the reign either
of Louis the Pious, or Lothair
(Boretius, i. 334 ; Pertz, i. 324 ; Ben.
Levita, ii. 49) ' ut in palatiis nostris
ad accusandum et iudicandum et
testimonium faciendum non se ex-
hibeant viles personae et infames,
histriones scilicet, nugatores, man-
zeres, scurrae, concubinarii, . . . aut
servi aut criminosi ' ; cf. R. Sohm,
Die frank. Reichs- und Gerichts-
verfassung, 354.

2 For ninth-century prohibitions
see Statutes of Haito, Bp. of Basle
(807-23), c. 11 (Boretius, i. 364);
Cone, of Maints (847), c. 13 (Bore-
tius, ii. 179) ; Cone. ofMaintz (852),
c. 6 (Boretius, ii. 187); Capit.
of Walter of Orleans (858), c. 17
(Mansi, xv. 507), Capit. of Hincmar

of Rheims (P. L. exxv. 776) ; and
cf. Prynne, 556. Stress is often laid
on the claims of the poor ; e. g.
Agobardus (t836), de Dispens. Ec-
cles. Rer. 30 (P. L. civ. 249) ' satiat
praeterea et inebriat histriones,
mimos, turpissimosque et vanis-
simos ioculares, cum pauperes
ecclesiae fame discruciati inter-
eant.'

3 Otto Frisingensis, Chronicon, vi.
32, records of the Emperor Henry
III in 1045 that ' quumque ex more
regio nuptias Inglinheim celebraret,
omne balatronum et histrionum
collegium, quod, ut assolet, eo con-
fluxerat, vacuum abire permisit,
pauperibusque ea quae membris
diaboli subtraxerat, large distribuit.'
After the deathof the EmperorHenry
I of Germany his widow Matilda
1 neminem voluit audire carmina sae-
cularia cantantem'( VitaMachtildis
Antiquior in M.G.H. Seriptores,
iv. 294).

4 Honorius Augustodunensis,
Elucidarium (I-1092), ii. 18 (P. L.

MIMUS AND SCOP

as applicable to minstrels the pronouncements of fathers and
councils against the scenici, and adds to them others more
recent, in which clergy who attend spectaada, or in any way
by word or deed play the ioadator, are uncompromisingly
condemned ]. This temper of the Church did not fail to find
its expression in post-Conquest England. The -council of
Oxford in 1222 adopted for this country the restatement of
the traditional rule by the Lateran council of 12152; and the
stricter disciplinary authorities at least attempted to enforce
the decision. Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln, for instance,
pressed it upon his clergy in or about 1238 3. The reforming
provisions of Oxford in 1259 laid down that, although minstrels
might receive charitable doles in monasteries, their spcctaada
must not be given 4 ; and a similar prohibition, couched in very

clxxii. 1 148) ' Habent spem iocu-
latores ? nullam ; tota namque in-
tentione sunt ministri Satanae ' ; on
the vogue of this book cf. Furnivall
Miscellany, 88.

1 The following passages of the
Decretum Gratiani, besides those
already quoted, bear on the subject :
(a) i. 23. 3, ex Jsid.de Eccl. Officiis,
ii. 2 ' His igitur lege Patrum
cavetur, ut a vulgari vita seclusi
a mundi voluptatibus sese absti-
neant ; non spectaculis, non pom-
pis intersint' : (b) i. 44. 7, ex Cone.
Nannetensi 'Nullus presbyterorum
. . . quando ad collectam presbyteri
convenerit . . . plausus et risus in-
conditos,et fabulas inanes ibi referre
aut cantare praesumat, aut turpia
iocavel ursovel tornatricibus ante se
fieri patiatur'; I cannot identify the
Council of Nantes referred to : the
canon is not amongst those supposed
to belong to the Council of 660, and
given by Mansi, xviii. 166 : (c) i. 46.
6, ex Cone. Carthag. iv. c. 60 [398.
Mansi, iii. 956] ' Clericum scur-
rilem et verbis turpibus ioculatorem
ab officio retrahendum censemus ' :
(d) ii. 4. 1. 1, ex Cone. Carthag. vii
(419) 'Omnes etiam infamiae macu-
lis aspersi, id est histriones . . . ab
accusatione prohibentur.' The
Decretum Gratiani was drawn up
+ 1 1 39. The Decretales of Gregory
IX (1234) incorporate can. 16 of

the Lateran Council (Mansi, xxii.
1003), held in 121 5 {Deer. Greg.
IX, iii. 1. 15) ' [Clerici] mimis,
ioculatoribus, et . histrionibus non
intendant ' ; and the Liber Sextus
of Boniface VIII (1298) adds the
following decree of that Pope (Sext.
Deer. iii. 1. 1) ' Clerici qui, clericalis
ordinis dignitati non modicum de-
trahentes, se ioculatores seu goliar-
dos faciunt aut bufones, si per annum
artem illam ignominiosam exer-
cuerint, ipso iure, si autem tempore
breviori, et tertio moniti non resi-
puerint, careant omni privilegio
clericali.'

2 Wilkins, i. 5S5. For can. 16
of the Lateran council see last
note. The prohibition is again
confirmed by can. 17 of the Synod
of Exeter in 1287 (Wilkins, ii. 129).

3 Constitutions of Bp. Grosse-
teste in his Epistolae (R. S.), 159
1 ne mimis, ioculatoribus, aut histrio-
nibus intendant.' In 1230, Grosse-
teste's predecessor, Hugh of Wells,
had bid his archdeacons inquire,
'an aliqui intendant histrionibus'
(Wilkins, i. 627).

4 Annates de Burton (Ann.
Monast. R. S. i. 485) ' histrionibus
potest dari cibus, quia pauperes
sunt, non quia histriones ; et eorum
ludi non videantur, vel audiantur,
vel permittantur fieri coram abbate
vel monachis.'

MINSTRELSY

uncomplimentary terms, finds a place in the new statutes
drawn up in 131 9 for the cathedral church of Sarum by Roger
de Mortival 1. A few years later the statutes of St. Albans
follow suit2, while in 131 2 a charge of breaking the canons in
this respect brought against the minor clergy of Ripon minster
had formed the subject of an inquiry by Archbishop Green-
field 3. Such notices might be multiplied 4 ; and the tenor of
them is echoed in the treatises of the more strait-laced amongst
monkish writers. John of Salisbury 5, William Fitz Stephen 6,
Robert Mannyng of Brunne7, are at one in their disapproval
of ioculatores. As the fourteenth century draws to its close,
and the Wyclifite spirit gets abroad, the freer critics of church

1 Const, of Roger de Mortival,
§ 46 (Dayman and Jones, Sarum
Statutes, 76) ' licet robustos cor-
pore, laborem ad quern homo nasci-
tur subire contemnentes, et in
delicato otio sibi victum quaerere
sub inepta laetitia saeculi eligentes,
qui " menestralli " et quandoque
"ludorum homines" vulgari eloquio
nuncupantur, non quia tales sunt,
sed quia opus Dei nostramque
naturam conspicimus in eisdem,
nostris domibus refectionis gratia
aliquotiens toleremus,' yet no money
or goods convertible into money
may be given them ; 'nee ad fabulas
quas referunt, et quae in detracta-
tionibus, turpiloquio, scurrilitate
consistunt, ullus voluntarium prae-
beat auditum, nee ad eas audiendas
aures habeat prurientes, sed per
obauditionem ab huiusmodi re-
latibus, quin potius iatratibus, in
quantum fieri poterit, excludantur,
tamen nemo libenter invito referat
auditori.' They may, if they are not
women, have their dole of bread,
and keep peace from evil words.
' Nee debet de huiusmodi persona-
rum, quae infames sunt, laude,
immo verius fraude, seu obloquio,
aut alias vanae laudis praeconio,
ecclesiasticus vir curare, cum nihil
eo miserius sit praelato, qui luporum
laudibus gloriatur.' The statute is
headed ' De maledicis, adulatoribus,
histrionibus, et detractoribus re-
spuendis.'

2 Thomas Walsingham, Gesta
Abbatum S. Albani (ed. Riley,
R. S. ii. 469) ' illicita spectacula
prorsus evitent ' (1326-35).

8 J. T. Fowler, Memorials of
Ripon Minster, ii. 68 (Surtees Soc.) ;
the charge was that ' vicarii, capel-
lani, et caeteri ministri . . . specta-
culis publicis, ludibriis et coreis,
immo teatricalibus ludis inter laicos
frequentius se immiscent.'

* The Statutes, i. 5. 4,of St. Paul's,
as late as ti4So, direct the beadles
' quod menestrallos coram altaribus
Virginis et Crucis indevote strepi-
tantes arceant et eiiciant' (W. S.
Simpson, Register of St. Paul's,
72).

6 John of Salisbury, Polycraticus
(t 1 159), i. 8 {P.L. excix. 406) 'satius
enim fuerat otiari quam turpiter
occupari. Hinc mimi, salii vel
saliares, balatrones, aemiliani,
gladiatores, palaestritae, gignadii,
praestigiatores, malefici quoque
multi, et tota ioculatorum scena
procedit.'

6 Cf. Representations, s.v. Lon-
don.

7 R. Mannyng de Brunne (t 1 303),
Handlyng Synne (ed. Furnivall),
148. ' Here doyng ys ful perylous '
he translates William of Wadington's
' Qe unt trop perilus mester ' ; and
tells a tale of divine judgement on
'a mynstralle, a gulardous,' who
disturbed a priest at mass.

MIMUS AND SCOP 41

and state, such as William Langland * or the imagined author
of Chaucer's Parsons Tale2, take up the same argument.
And they in their turn hand it on to the interminable pam-
phleteering of the Calvinistic Puritans 3.

1 Piers the Plowman, C. text, whiche beth godes myn-

viii. 97 : strales.'

' Clerkus and knyjtes ' wel- 2 Cant. Tales (ed. Skeat), § 69

cometh kynges mynstrales, ' Soothly, what thing that he yeveth

And for loue of here lordes * for veyne glorie, as to minstrals and

lithen hem at festes ; to folk, for to beren his renoun in the

Muchemore,methenketh*riche world, he hath sinne ther-of, and

men auhte noon almesse.'

Haue beggars by-fore hem* 3 e. g. Stubbes, Anatomy, i. 169.

CHAPTER III

THE MINSTREL LIFE

The perpetual infamia of the minstrels is variously reflected
in the literature of their production. Sometimes they take
their condemnation lightly enough, dismissing it with a jest or
a touch of bravado. In Aucassin et Nicolete, that marvellous
romance of the viel caitif, when the hero is warned that if he
takes a mistress he must go to hell, he replies that, to hell will
he go, for thither go all the goodly things of the world.
' Thither go the gold and the silver, and the vair and the grey,
and thither too go harpers and minstrels and the kings of the
•world. With these will I go, so that I have Nicolete, my
most sweet friend, with me ' 1. At other times they show
a wistful sense of the pathos of their secular lot. They tell
little stories in which heaven proves more merciful than the
vice-gerents of heaven upon earth, and Virgin or saint
bestows upon a minstrel the sign of grace which the priest
denies2. But often, again, they turn upon their persecutors

1 Aucassin et Nicolete (+1150- Coincy), Miracles de Nostre Dame
1200), ed. Bourdillon (1897), 22. (t 1223, ed. Poquet, 1859), and Le
The term ' caitif has puzzled the Harpeor de Roncestre (Michel,
editors. Surely the minstrel has in Roms., Contes, Dits, Fabl. ii. 108).
mind the abusive epithets with Saint Pierre et le Jongleicr (Mon-
which the clergy bespattered his taiglon Raynaud, v. 117) is a witty
profession. See Appendix B. tale, in which a minstrel, left in

2 See especially Le Tombeor de charge of hell, loses so many souls to
Notre Dame {Romania, ii. 315). St. Peter at dice, that no minstrel
Movati (Rom. xxv. 591) refers to a has been allowed there since. B.
passage quoted by Augustine, de Joannes Bonus (Acta SS. Oct.
Civ. Dei, vi. 10, from the lost work ix. 693) was a minstrel in his youth,
of Seneca, de Superstitionibus , but the patron saints of the min-
i doctus archimimus, senex iam de- strels were always St. Genesius the
crepitus, cotidie in Capitoliomimum mime (cf. p. 10), and St. Julian
agebat, quasi dii libenter spectarent Hospitator (Acta SS.Jan. iii. 589),
quern illi homines desierant.' Some- who built a hospital and once en-
what similar are Don Cierge qui tertained an angel unawares.
descendi au Jottgleour (Gautier de

THE MINSTREL LIFE 43

and rend them with the merciless satire of the fabliaux, wherein
it is the clerk, the theologian, who is eternally called upon to
play the indecent or ridiculous part *.

Under spiritual disabilities the minstrels may have been, but
so far as substantial popularity amongst all classes went, they
had no cause from the eleventh to the fourteenth century to
envy the monks. As a social and literary force they figure
largely both on the continent and in England. The distinc-
tively Anglo-Saxon types of scop and glcomon of course dis-
appear at the Conquest. They do not cease to exist; but they
go under ground, singing their defiant lays of Hereward 2 ; and
they pursue a more or less subterranean career until the four-
teenth century brings the English tongue to its own again.
But minstrelsy was no less popular with the invaders than
with the invaded. Whether the skald had yet developed
amongst the Scandinavian pirates who landed with Rollo on
the coasts of France may perhaps be left undetermined 3 : for
a century and a half had sufficed to turn the Northmen into
Norman French, and with the other elements of the borrowed
civilization had certainly come the ioculator. In the very van
of William's army at Senlac strutted the minstrel Taillefer,
and went to his death exercising the double arts of his hybrid
profession, juggling with his sword, and chanting an heroic
lay of Roncesvalles 4. Twenty years later, Domesday Book
records how Berdic the ioculator regis held three vills and
five carucates of land in Gloucestershire, and how in Hamp-

1 Paris, 113 ; Bldier, 333. 4 Guy of Amiens, de Bello Hastin-

2 Brooke, Eng. Lit. 305; Ten gensi (t 1068), 391, 399 :

Brink, i. 149. ' Histrio, cor audax nimium quern

8 Sophus Bugge, in Bidrag til nobilitabat . . .

den aeldste Skaldedigtni?igs His- . . . Incisor-ferri mimuscogno-

torie (1894; cf. L. Duvau in Rev. mine dictus.'

Celt. xvii. 113), holds that Skaldic Wace, Roman de Rou (tii7o)

poetry began in the Viking raids of (ed. Andresen, iii. 8035) :

the eighth and ninth centuries, under ' Taillefer, ki mult bien chantout,

the influence of the Irish f/id. The Sor un cheval ki tost alout,

tenth-century skald as described in Devant le due alout chantant

the Raven-Song of Hornklon at the De Karlemaigne et de Rolant

court of Harold Fair-hair is very Et d'Oliver et des vassals

like the scop (C.B. B. i. 254), and Qui morurent en Rencevals.'

here too tumblers and buffoons have Cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest,

found their way. Cf. Kogel, i. I. Ill ; iii. 477.
E. Mogk, in Paul, Grundriss 2, iii. 248.

44 MINSTRELSY

shire Adelinda, a ioculatrix, held a virgate, which Earl Roger
had given her *. During the reigns of the Angevin and Plan-
tagenet kings the minstrels were ubiquitous. They wandered
at their will from castle to castle, and in time from borough
to borough, sure of their ready welcome alike in the village
tavern, the guildhall, and the baron's keep 2. They sang and
jested in the market-places, stopping cunningly at a critical
moment in the performance, to gather their harvest of small
coin from the bystanders3. In the great castles, while lords
and ladies supped or sat around the fire, it was theirs to while
away many a long bookless evening with courtly geste or witty
sally. At wedding or betrothal, baptism or knight-dubbing,
treaty or tournament, their presence was indispensable. The
greater festivities saw them literally in their hundreds4, and
rich was their reward in money and in jewels, in costly gar-
ments 5, and in broad acres. They were licensed vagabonds,
with free right of entry into the presence-chambers of the
land6. You might know them from afar by their coats of
many colours, gaudier than any knight might respectably
wear 7, by the instruments upon their backs and those of their

1 Domesday Book, Gloc.l. 162 ; pro quibus forsan viginti vel triginta
Hants, f. 38 (b). Before the Con- marcas argenti consumpserant, vix
quest, not to speak of Widsith revoltftis septem diebus, histrioni-
and Deor, Edmund Ironside had bus, ministris scilicet diaboli, ad
given the hills of Chartham primam vocem dedisse.'

and Walworth 'cuidam ioculatori 6 The Annales (1"i33o) of Johannes

suo nomine Hitardo' (Somner- de Trokelowe (R. S.), 98, tell s.a.

Battely, Antiq. of Canterbury, app. 13 17, how when Edward II was

39). Hitardus, wishing to visit keeping Pentecost in Westminster

Rome, gave it to Christ Church, ' quaedam mulier, ornatu histrionali

Canterbury. redimita, equum bonum, histrionali-

2 Bernhard, iii. 378, gives a thir- ter phaleratum, ascensa, dictam
teenth - century regulation for the aulam intravit, mensas more hi-
Petit Pont entry of Paris : ' Et ausi strionum circuivit.' She rode to the
tot li jougleur sunt quite por i ver king, placed an insulting letter in
de chancon.' his hands, and retired. The ' iani-

3 Gautier, ii. 124. tores et hostiarii,' when blamed,

4 There were 426 at the wedding declared ' non esse moris regii, ali-
of Margaret of England with John cui menestrallo, palatium intrare
of Brabant in 1290 (Chappell, i. 15, volenti, in tanta solemnitate aditum
from Wardrobe Bk. 18 Edw. I). denegare ' ; cf. Walsingham, Hist.

6 Rigordus, de gestis Philippi Angl. (R. S.). i. 149.

Augusti (1186) 'vidimus quondam 7 Strutt, 189, has a fourteenth-

quosdam principes qui vestes diu century story of a youth rebuked for

excogitatas et variis riorum pictura- coming to a feast in a coat bardy,

tionibus artificiossisimis elaboratas, cut German fashion like a minstrel's;

THE MINSTREL LIFE 45

servants, and by the shaven faces, close-clipped hair and flat
shoes proper to their profession l. This kenspeckle appear-
ance, together with the privilege of easy access, made the
minstrel's dress a favourite disguise in ages when disguise was
often imperative. The device attributed by the chroniclers to
Alfred and to Anlaf becomes in the romances one of the com-
monest of click h2-. The readiness with which the minstrels
won the popular ear made them a power in the land. William
de Longchamp, the little-loved chancellor of Richard I,
found it worth his while to bring a number of them over
from France, that they might sing his praises abroad in the
public places 3. Nor were they less in request for satire than
for eulogy. The English speaking minstrels, in particular,
were responsible for many songs in derision of unpopular
causes and personalities4 ; and we need not doubt that 'the lay
that Sir Dinadan made by King Mark, which was the worst
lay that ever harper sang with harp or with any other instru-
ments,' must have had its precise counterparts in actual life 5.
The Sarum statutes of 131 9 lay especial stress on the flattery
and the evil speaking with which the minstrels rewarded their

cf. the complaint against knights in tonsure. The flat shoe had been

A Poem on the times of Edward II a mark of the niimi planipedes at

(Percy Soc. lxxxii), 23 : Rome.

' Now thei beth disgysed, 2 Gautier, ii. 105. Thus Nicolete

So diverselych i-di^t, (Aucassin et Nicolete, ed. Bour-

That no man-may knowe dillon, 120) 'prist une herbe, si en

A mynstrel from a knyjt oinst son cief et son visage, si qu'ele

Wei ny.' fu tote noire et tainte. Et ele fist

The miniatures show minstrels in faire cote et mantel et cemisse et

short coats to the knees and some- braies,si s'atornaaguisedejogleor';

times short capes with hoods. The cf. King Horn (ed. Hall, 1901),

Act of Apparel (1463, 3 Edw. IV, c. 1471-2 :

5) excepts minstrels and 'players in 'Hi sede, hi weren harpurs,

their interludes.' The Franciscan And sume were gigours.'

story (p. 57) shows that some of the s Roger de Hoveden, Chronicon

humbler minstrels went shabby (R. S), iii. 143 ' De regno Francorum

enough. cantores et ioculatores muneribus

1 Klein, iii. 635 ; Du MeVil, Or. allexerat, ut de illo canerent in pla-

Lat. 30 ; Gautier, ii. 104 ; Geoffrey teis ; et iam dicebatur quod non erat

of Monmouth, Historia Britonum, talis in orbe.'

ix. 1 ' rasit capillos suos et barbam, 4 Ten Brink, i. 314.

cultumque ioculatoris cum cithara 8 Malory, Morte d1 Arthur, x.

cepit. ' Cf. the canon quoted on 27, 31. Even King Mark let the

p. 61 requiring Goliardic clerks to minstrel go quit, because he was a

be shorn or shaven, to obliterate the minstrel.

46 MINSTRELSY

entertainers1. Sometimes, indeed, they over-reached them-
selves, for Henry I is related to have put out the eyes of
Lucas de Barre, a Norman jongleur, or perhaps rather trou-
vere, who made and sang songs against him2. But Lucas de
Barre's rank probably aggravated his offence, and as a rule the
minstrels went scot-free. A wiser churchman here and there
was not slow to perceive how the unexampled hold of min-
strelsy on the popular ear might be turned to the service of
religion. Eadhelm, standing in gleeman's attire on an English
bridge to mingle words of serious wisdom with his carmina
trivialia, is one instance 3. And in the same spirit St. Francis,
himself half a troubadour in youth, would call his Minorites
ioculatores Domini, and send them singing over the world to
beg for their fee the repentance and spiritual joy of their
hearers 4. A popular hymn-writer of the present day is alleged
to have thought it ' hard that the devil should have all the good
tunes ' ; but already in the Middle Ages religious words were
being set to secular music, and graced with the secular imagery
of youth and spring5.

But if the minstrels were on the one hand a force among
the people, on the other they had the ear of kings. The

1 Cf. p. 40. nerari a vobis, videlicet ut stetis in

2 Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Eccles. vera paenitentia." Et ait : " Quid
xii. 19 'pro derisoriis cantionibus . . . enim sunt servi Dei nisi quidam
quin etiam indecentes de me canti- ioculatores eius qui corda hominum
lenas facetus choraula composuit, erigere debent et movere ad laeti-
ad iniuriam mei palam cantavit, ma- tiam spiritualem." ' Cf. Sabatier,
levolosque mihi hostes ad cachinnos Life of St. Francis, 9, 51, 307.
ita saepe provocavit.' Lucas de Perhaps Francis may have heard of
Barre seems to have been of noble Joachim of Flora, his contemporary,
birth, but 'palam cantavit cantile- who wrote in his Commentary on
nas.' the Apocalypse, f. 183. a. 2 'qui

3 Cf. p. 30. vere monachus est nihil reputat esse

4 Speculum Perfectionis (ed. Sa- suum nisi citharam.'

batier), 197. When Francis had fin- 6 The MS. of the famous thir-

ished his Canticle of the Sun, he teenth-century canon Sumer is icu-

thought for a moment of summon- men in has religious words written

ing ' frater Pacificus qui in saeculo beneath the profane ones ; cf. Wool-

vocabatur rex versuum et fuit valde dridge, Oxford Hist, of Music, i.

curialis doctor cantorum,' and giving 326. Several religious adaptations

him a band of friars who might sing of common motives of profane lyric

it to the people at the end of are amongst the English thirteenth-

their sermons : ' finitis autem laudi- century poems preserved in Harl.

bus volebat quod praedicator diceret MS. 2253 (Specimens of Lyrical

populo : "Nos sumus ioculatores Poetry: Percy Soc, 1842, no. 19,

Domini, et pro his volumus remu- and ed. Boddeker, Berlin, 1878).

THE MINSTREL LIFE 47

English court, to judge by the payments recorded in the
exchequer books, must have been full of them 1. The fullest
and most curious document on the subject dates from the
reign of Edward I. It is a roll of payments made on the
occasion of a Whitsuntide feast held in London in the year
1306, and a very large number of the minstrels recorded are
mentioned by name 2. At the head of the list come five min-
strels with the high-sounding title of le roy 3, and these get five
marks apiece. A number of others follow, who received sums
varying from one mark upwards. Most of these have French
names, and many are said to be in the company of this or that
noble or reverend guest at the feast. Finally, two hundred
marks were distributed in smaller sums amongst the inferior
minstrels, les autres menestrans de la commune, and some of
these seem to have been of English birth. Below the roys rank
two minstrels, Adam le Boscu and another, who are dignified
with the title of maistre, which probably signifies that they
were clerks4. The other names are mainly descriptive, 'Janin
le Lutour,' 'Gillotin le Sautreour,' 'Baudec le Taboureur,' and
the like ; a few are jesting stage names, such as the inferior per-
formers of our music halls bear to-day 6. Such are ' Guillaume
sanz Maniere,' ' Reginaldus le Menteur,' 'le Petit Gauteron,'
'ParvusWillielmus,' and those of the attractive comedians Perle
in the Eghe, and Matill' Makejoye. The last, by the way, is
the only woman performer named. The resources of Edward
I could no doubt stand the strain of rewarding with royal
magnificence the entertainers of his guests. There is plenty
of evidence, however, that even on secular grounds the dia-
tribes of the moralists against the minstrels were often enough
justified. To the lavish and unthrifty of purse they became

1 Jusserand, E. W. L. 195, 199, wrote a lament for his death in 1288.
215; Strutt, 194-5, 210, 227; He quotes Hist. Lilt. xx. 666, as to
Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 119; Chappell, this.

i. 15; Collier, i. 22; Wardrobe 5 Gautier, ii. 103; Be"dier, 405,

Accounts of Edward J (Soc. Antiq.), quote many similar names; e.g.

163, 166, 168. Quatre CEufs, Malebouche, Ronge-

2 Cf. Appendix C. foie, Tourne-en-fuie, Courtebarbe,

3 Cf. Appendix D. Porte-Hotte, Mai Quarrel, Songe-

4 This cannot be the famous Adan Feste a la grant viele, Mal-ap-
de le Hale (cf. ch. viii), known as pareillie, Pe\6, Brisc-Pot, Simple
'le Bossu,' if Guy, 178, is right in d' Amour, Chevrete, Passereau.
saying that his nephew, Jean Mados,

48 MINSTRELSY

blood-suckers. Matilda, the wife of Henry I, is said to have
squandered most of her revenues upon them * ; while the
unfortunate Robert of Normandy, if no less a chronicler than
Ordericus Vitalis may be believed, was stripped by these
rapacious gentry to the very skin 2. Yet for all the days of
honour and all the rich gifts the minstrel life must have had its
darker side. Easily won, easily parted with ; and the lands and
laced mantles did not last long, when the elbow itched for the
dice-box. This was the incurable ruin of the minstrel folk 3.
And even that life of the road, so alluring to the fever in the
blood, must have been a hard one in the rigours of an English
climate. To tramp long miles in wind and rain, to stand wet
to the skin and hungry and footsore, making the slow bour-
geois laugh while the heart was bitter within ; such must have
been the daily fate of many amongst the humbler minstrels at
least4. And at the end to die like a dog in a ditch, under
the ban of the Church and with the prospect of eternal damna-
tion before the soul.

Kings and nobles were not accustomed to depend for their
entertainment merely upon the stray visits of wandering
minstrels. Others more or less domiciled formed a permanent
part of the household. These indeed are the minstrels in the
stricter sense of that term — ministri, minister tales. In Domes-
day Book, as we have seen, one Berdic bears the title of
the ioculator regis. Shortly afterwards Henry I had his
mimus regis, by name Raherus, who made large sums by his
suavitas {ocularis, and founded the great priory of St. Bar-
tholomew at Smithfield 5. Laying aside his parti-coloured

1 William of Malmesbury, Gesta works by Jubinal and Kressner, and

Reg. Angl. (R. S.), ii. 494. the biography by Cle"dat in the

r Ordericus Vitalis, v. 12, &c. On series of Grands E-crivains fran-

one occasion ' ad ecclesiam, quia cais.

nudus erat, non pervenit.' 6 Morley, Bartholomew Fair, I-

3 Bddier, 359. 25, from Liber Fundacionis in Cott.

4 Gautier, chs. xx, xxi, gives an Vesfi. B. ix; Leland, Collectanea,
admirable account of the jongleur1 s I, 61, 99 ; Dugdale, Monasticon, ii.
daily life, and its seamy side is 166; Stow, Survey, 140; C. Knight,
brought out by Bddier, 399-418. London, ii. 34 ; Percy, 406. No min-
A typical jougletir figure is that of strels, however, appear in the formal
the poet Rutebeuf, a man of genius, list of Henry I's Norman Household
but often near death's door from (+1 135), which seems to have been
starvation. See the editions of his the nucleus of the English Royal

THE MINSTREL LIFE 49

coat, he even became himself the first prior of the new
community. The old spirit remained with him, however ;
and it is recorded that the fame of the house was largely
magnified by means of some feigned miracles which Raherus
put forth. Richard I was a noted lover of song, and the
names of more than one minstrel of his are preserved.
There was Ambroise, who was present at Richard's coro-
nation in 1 189 and at the siege of Acre in 1191, and who
wrote a history, still extant, of the third crusade 1. And
there was that Blondiaux or Blondel de Nesle, the story
of whose discovery of his captive master, apocryphal though
it may be, is in all the history books2. Henry III had. his
magistcr Henricus versificator in 1251 3, and his magister
Ricardus citharista in 1252 4. A harper was also amongst
the ministri of Prince Edward in the Holy War 5, and when
the prince became Edward I, he still retained one in his
service. He is mentioned as Walter de Stourton, the king's
harper, in 1290 6, and as the citharista regis in 1300 7.
Edward II had several minstrels, to one of whom, William
de Morlee, known as Roy. de North, he made a grant of land 8.
By this time the royal minstrels seem to have become a
regular" establishment of no inconsiderable numbers. Under
Edward III they received j\d. a day9. A little later in the
reign, between 1344 and 1347, there were nineteen who
received izd. a day in war, when they doubtless formed
a military band, and 20s. a year in peace. These included
five trumpeters, one citoler, five pipers, one tabouretter, two
clarions, one nakerer, and one fiddler, together with three

Household as it existed up to 1782 6 Chappell, i. 15, from Wardrobe

(Hall, Red Book of 'Exchequer, R.S., Book, 18 Edw. I.

iii. cclxxxvii, 807). 7 Wardrobe Accounts of Edw. I

1 Gautier, ii. 47, 54 ; G. Paris, (Soc. Antiq.), 323.

§ 88 ; Ambroise, L'Estoire de la 8 Anstis, Register of Order of the

Guerre Sainte, ed. G. Paris (Docu- Garter, ii. 303, from Pat. de terr.

ments ine'dits sur F Hist, de France, forisfact. 16 Edw. III. Cf. Gesta

1897). Edw. de Carnarzion in Chron. of

2 Percy, 358. Edw. I and II (R. S.), ii- 91 ' ad-

3 Madox, Hist, of Exchequer, haesit cantoribus, tragoedis, aurigis,
268. navigiis et aliis huiuscemodi artifi-

4 Percy, 365. ciis mechanicis.'-

6 Walter Hemmingford, Chroni- 9 Strutt, 194; Issue Roll of Tho-
con, c. 35 ( Vet. Hist. Angl. Script, mas de Brantingham (ed. Devon),
ii. 591). 54-57, 296-8.

CHAMBERS. I E

50 MINSTRELSY

additional minstrels, known as waits1. The leader of the
minstrels bore the title of rex, for in 1387 we find a licence
given by Richard II to his rex ministrallorum, John Caumz,
permitting him to pass the seas 2. Henry V had fifteen
minstrels when he invaded France in 1415, and at a later date
eighteen, who received lid. a day apiece3. At the end of
his reign his minstrels received 100^. a year, and this annuity
was continued under Henry VI, who in 1455 had twelve of
them, besides a wait. In the next year this king issued
a commission for the impressing of boys to fill vacancies in
the body 4. Edward IV had thirteen minstrels and a wait 5.
By 1469 these had been cut down to eight. At their head
was a chief, who was now called, not as in Richard II's time
rex, but marescallus 6. The eight king's minstrels and their
marescallus can be traced through the reign of Henry VII,
and so on into the sixteenth century7.

Nor was the royal household singular in the main-
tenance of a permanent body of minstrels. The citharista
of Margaret, queen of Edward I, is mentioned in 1300,
and her istrio in 1302 8. Philippa, queen of Edward III,
had her minstrels in 1337 9, and those of Queen Elizabeth
were a regular establishment in the reign of Henry VII 10.
The Scottish court, too, had its recognized troupe, known by
the early years of the sixteenth century as the ' minstrelis
of the chekkar n.' As with kings and queens so with lesser
men. The list of minstrels at court in 1306 includes the
harpers and other musicians of several lords, both English
and foreign12. In 1308 the earl of Lancaster had a body
of menestralli and an armiger menestrallorum 13. During

1 Household Ordinances, 4, 11. 542, 572 ; ii. 68, 84, 176.

2 Rymer, vii. 555. " The entry ' ad solvendum

3 Ibid. ix. 255, 260, 336. histrionibus ' occurs in 1364 (Cotn-

4 Ibid. x. 287 ; xi. 375. pott Camerarii Scot. i. 422). The

6 Household Ordinances, 48. Exchequer Rolls from 1433-50
8 Rymer, xi. 642; cf. Appendix D. contain payments to the ' mimi,'

7 Ibid. xiii. 705; Collier, i. 45; ' histriones,' ' ioculatores regis';
Campbell, i. 407, 5 16, 570; ii. 100.224. and in 1507-8 for the 'histriones

8 Wardrobe Accounts of Edw. I in scaccario ' or 'minstrels of the
(Soc. Antiq.), 7, 95; Calendar of chekkar' {Accounts of Treasurer
Anc. Deeds, ii. A, 2050, 2068, 2076. of Scotland, i. xx, cxcix; ii. lxxi).

9 Strutt, 189. " Cf. Appendix C.

10 Collier,i. 46; Campbell, i. 407, 13 Collier, i. 21, from Lansd.MS.l.

THE MINSTREL LIFE 51

the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries entries of payments
to the minstrels of a vast number of domini, small and
great, are common in the account books x. Henry, earl
of Derby, took minstrels with him in his expeditions abroad
of 1390 and 1392 2; while the Household Book of the earl of
Northumberland (f 1512) shows that he was accustomed to
entertain ' a Taberett, a Luyte, and a Rebecc,' as well as six
' trompettes3.' Minstrels are also found, from the beginning
of the fifteenth century, in the service of the municipal cor-
porations. London, Coventry, Bristol, Shrewsbury, Norwich,
Chester, York, Beverley, Leicester, Lynn, Canterbury had
them, to name no others. They received fixed fees or dues,
wore the town livery and badge of a silver scutcheon, played
at all local celebrations and festivities, and were commonly
known as waits4". This term we have already found in use
at court, and the ' Black Book,' which contains the household
regulations of Edward IV, informs us that the primary duty
of a wait was to ' pipe the watch,' summer and winter, at
certain fixed hours of the night5.

It must not be supposed that established minstrels, whether
royal, noble, or municipal, were always in constant attendance
on their lords. Certain fixed services were required of them,

Two of this lord's menestriers were Gautier, ii. 57, describes the com-

entertained by Robert of Artois, munal cantorini of Perugia, from

who also had his own (Guy, 154). the fourteenth to the sixteenth cen-

1 Gautier, ii. 51 ; cf. the extracts tury. The usual Latin term for
from various coviputi in Appendix the Beverley waits is speculatores ;
E. There are many entries also in but they are also called minislralli,
the accounts of King's Lynn {Hist, histriones and mimi. Apparently
MSS. xi. 3.213) ; Beverley (Leach, waits are intended by the satrapi
Beverley MSS. 171), &c. of the Winchester Accounts (App.

2 L. T. Smith, Derby Accounts E. (iv)). Elsewhere histriones is
(C. S.), xcvi. the most usual term. The signa-

3 Percy, N. H. B. 42, 344. tories to the 1321 statutes of the

4 Stowe, Survey, 39 (London) ; Paris guild include several guhtes
Smith, English Guilds, 423, 447 (Bernhard, iii. 402).

(Bristol, Norwich); Davies, 14 5 Household Ordinances, 48 'A

(York); Kelly, 131 (Leicester); Wayte, that nyghtly, from Mighel-

Morris, 348 (Chester) ; Civis, No. masse till Shere-Thursday, pipeth

xxi (Canterbury) ; Sharpe, 207 the watche within this courte fower

(Coventry) ; Hist. MSS. xi. 3. 163 tymes, and in the somcr nyghtes

(Lynn) ; Leach, Beverley MSS. three tymes.' He is also to attend

105, &c. (Beverley); for Shrewsbury the new Knights of the Bath when

cf. Appendix E. On Wails' Badges, they keep watch in the chapel the

cf. LI. Jewitt, in Reliquary, xii. 145. night before they are dubbed.

E 2

MINSTRELSY

which were not very serious, except in the case of waits1;
for the rest of their time they were free. This same ' Black
Book' of Edward IV is very explicit on the point. The
minstrels are to receive a yearly fee and a livery2. They
must attend at court for the five great feasts of the year. At
other times, two or three out of their number, or more if the
king desire it, are to be in waiting. The last regulation on
the subject is curious. The king forbids his minstrels
to be too presumptuous or familiar in asking rewards of
any lord of the land ; and in support of this he quotes a
similar prohibition by the Emperor Henry II 3. Doubtless,
in the intervals of their services, the household minstrels

1 The Lynn waits had to go
through the town from All Saints
to Candlemas. Those of Coventry
had similar duties, and in 1467 were
forbidden 'to pass this Cite but to
Abbotts and Priors within x myles
of this Cite.'

2 The six minstrels of the Earl
of Derby in 1391 had a livery of
' blod ray cloth and tanne facings '
(Wylie, iv. 160).

3 Household Ordinances, 48 :
' Mynstrelles, xiii, whereof one is
verger, that directeth them all in
festivall dayes to theyre stations, to
bloweings and pipynges, to suche
offices as must be warned to pre-
pare for the king and his houshold
at metes and soupers, to be the
more readie in all servyces ; and all
these sittinge in the hall togyder ;
whereof sume use trumpettes, sume
shalmuse and small pipes, and
sume as strengemen, comyng to
this courte at five festes of the yere,
and then to take theyre wages of
houshold after iiijd ob. a day, if they
be present in courte, and then they
to avoyde the next day after the
festes be done. Besides eche of
them anothyr reward yerely, taking
of the king in the resceyte of the
chekker, and clothing wynter and
somer, or xx8 a piece, and lyverey
in courte, at evyn amonges them
all, iiij gallons ale ; and for wynter
season, iij candels wax, vj candells
peris', iiij talwood, and sufficiaunt

logging by the herberger, for them
and theyre horses, nygh to the
courte. Also havyng into courte
ij servauntes honest, to beare theyre
trumpettes, pipes, and other instru-
mentes, and a torche for wynter
nyghts, whyles theyblowe to souper,
and other revelles, delyvered at the
chaundrey; and allway ij of these
persons to continue in courte in
wages, beyng present to warne at the
kinge's rydinges, when he goeth to
horse-backe,asofteasitshallrequire,
and by theyre blowinges the hous-
hold meny may follow in the coun-
tries. And if any of these two
minstrelles be sicke in courte, he
taketh ij loves, one messe of grete
mete, one gallon ale. They have
no part of any rewardes gevyn to
the houshold. And if it please the
kinge to have ij strenge Minstrelles
to contynue in like wise. The kinge
wull not for his worshipp that his
Minstrelles be too presumptuous,
nor too familier to aske any rewardes
of the lordes of his londe, remem-
bring De Henrico secundo im-
peratore [1002-24] qui omnes
Ioculatores suos et Armaturos mo-
nuerit, ut nullus eorum in eius
nomine vel dummodo steterint in
servicio suo nihil ab aliquo in regno
suo deberent petere donandum ;
sed quod ipsi domini donatores pro
Regis amore citius pauperibus ero-
garent.'

THE MINSTREL LIFE

travelled, like their unattached brethren of the road, but with
the added advantage of a letter of recommendation from their
lord, which ensured them the hospitality of his friends1.
Such letters were indeed often given, both to the minstrels
of a man's own household and as testimonials to other
minstrels who may have especially pleased the giver. Those
interesting collections of mediaeval epistolary formulae, the
summae dictaminis, contain many models for them, and judging
by the lavish eulogy which they employ, the minstrels them-
selves must have had a hand in drawing them up 2. Many
minstrels probably confined themselves to short tours in the
vicinity of their head quarters ; others, like Widsith, the Anglo-
Saxon scop, were far travellers. John Caumz received a licence
from Richard II to cross the seas, and in 1483 we find
Richard III entertaining minstrels of the dukes of Austria
and Bavaria3. Possibly the object of John Caumz was to
visit one of the scolae ministrallorum in France, where experi-
ences might be exchanged and new songs learnt. Beau-
vais, Lyon, Cambrai were famous for these schools, which
were held year by year in Lent, when performances were
stopped ; and the wardrobe accounts of Edward III record
grants of licences and expenses to Barbor and Morlan, two bag-
pipers, to visit the scolas ministrallis in partibus trans mare 4.

1 Percy, N. H. B. (tl5i2), 339.
The king's shawms, if they came
yearly, got icw., the king's jugler
and the king's or queen's bearward,
6s. 8d. ; a duke's or earl's trumpeters,
if they came six together, also got
6s. 8d., an earl's minstrels only 3^. $d.
If the troupe came only once in two
or three years, and belonged to a
' speciall Lorde, Friende, or Kyns-
man' of the earl, the rate was
higher.

2 Gautier, ii. 107, from Bibl. de
I1 'Arsenal MS. 854; e.g. ' Depreca-
tio pro done? instrioni impendendo.
Salutem et amoris perpetui firmi-
tatem. R. latorem praesentium,
egregium instrionem qui nuper
meis interfuit nuptiis, ubi suum
officium exercuit eleganter, ad vos
cum magna confidentia destinamus,
rogantes precibus, quibus possu-

mus, quatinus aliquid subsidium
gracie specialis eidem impendere
debeatis.' Collier, i. 42, gives a
letter of Richard III for his bear-
ward.

3 Collier, i. 41.

* Strutt, 194 ; Gautier, ii. 173-8;
H. Lavoix, ii. 198. They are
called Scolae ministrorum, Scolae
mimorum. They can be traced to
the fourteenth century. Geneve
and Bourg-en-Bresse also had
them. The Paris statutes of 1407
(cf. Appendix F) require a licence
from the rot des me'nestrels for such
an assembly. A Beauvais com-
putus (1402) has ' Dati sunt de
gratia panes ducenti capitulares
mimis in hac civitate de diversis
partibus pro cantilenis novis addi-
scendis confluentibus.'

54 MINSTRELSY

From the fourteenth century it is possible to trace the
growth of the household minstrels as a privileged class at
the expense of their less fortunate rivals. The freedom
of access enjoyed by the entertainers of earlier days was
obviously open to abuse. We have seen that in 1317 it led
to the offering of an insult to Edward II by an emissary
clad as a minstrel at his own table. It was only two
years before that a royal proclamation had considerably
restrained the liberty of the minstrels. In view of the number
of idle persons who ' under colour of mynstrelsie ' claimed
food, drink, and gifts in private houses, it was ordered ' that
to the houses of prelates earls and barons none resort to
meate and drynke, unless he be a mynstrel, and of these
mynstrels that there come none except it be three or four
minstrels of honour at the most in one day, unlesse he be
desired of the lorde of the house.' The houses of meaner
men are to be altogether exempt, except at their desire1.
I think it is probable that by ' minstrels of honour ' we must
here understand 'household minstrels2'; and that the seventy
of the ordinance must have come upon those irresponsible
vagrants who had not the shelter of a great man's name. With
the Statutes of Labourers in the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury begins a history of legislation against 'vacabonds and
valiant beggars,' which put further and serious difficulties in
the way of the free movement of the migratory classes through
the country 3. Minstrels, indeed, are not specifically declared
to be 'vacabonds' until this legislation was codified by William
Cecil in 1572 4; but there is evidence that they were none

1 Hearne, Appendix ad Lelandi and other idlers and vagabonds,
Collectanea, vi. 36 ; Percy, 367. who live on the gifts called Cym-
The proclamation is dated Aug. 6, mortha,' and the Act of 1402
9 Edvv. II (i.e. 13 1 5). (4 Hen. IV, c. 27) in the same sense,

2 No technical term seems, how- seem only to refer to the Welsh
ever, intended in Launfal (ed. bards (cf. p. yj).

Ritson), 668 : 4 Ribton-Turner, 107 (14 Eliz.

' They hadde menstrales of moch c. 5). Whipping is provided for

honours, ' all Fencers Bearewardes Comon

Fydelers, sytolyrs, and trom- Players in Enterludes & Min-

pours.' strels, not belonging to any Baron

3 C.J. Ribton-Turner, Vagrants of this Realme or towards any other
and Vagrancy, chs. 3, 4, 5. The honourable personage of greater
proclamation of 1284 against Degree; all Juglers Pedlars Tyn-
• Westours, Bards, and Rhymers kers and Petye Chapmen ; whiche

THE MINSTREL LIFE 55

the less liable to be treated as such, unless they had some
protection in the shape of livery or licence. At Chester
from the early thirteenth century, and at Tutbury in Stafford-
shire from 1380, there existed courts of minstrelsy which
claimed to issue licences to all performers within their pur-
view. It is not probable that this jurisdiction was very
effective. But a step taken by Edward IV in 1469 had for
its avowed object to strengthen the hands of what may be
called official minstrelsy. Representation had been made
to the king that certain rude husbandmen and artificers
had usurped the title and livery of his minstrels, and had
thus been enabled to gather an illegitimate harvest of fees.
He therefore created or revived a regular guild or fraternity
of minstrels, putting his own household performers with
their marescallns at the head of it, and giving its officers
a disciplinary authority over the profession throughout the
country, with the exception of Chester. It is not improbable,
although it is not distinctly stated, that admission into the
guild was practically confined to ' minstrels of honour.' Cer-
tainly one of the later local guilds which grew up in the
sixteenth century, that of Beverley, limited its membership to
such as could claim to be ' mynstrell to some man of honour or
worship or waite of some tovvne corporate or other ancient town,
or else of such honestye and conyng as shalbe thought laudable
and pleasant to the hearers V In any case the whole drift of
social development was to make things difficult for the inde-
pendent minstrels and to restrict the area of their wanderings.
The widespread popularity of the minstrels amongst the
mediaeval laity, whether courtiers, burghers, or peasants, needs
no further labouring. It is more curious to find that in spite
of the formal anathemas of the Church upon their art, they
were not, as a matter of fact, rigorously held at arm's length
by the clergy. We find them taking a prominent part in the

said Fencers Bearewardes comon Quorum, wher and in what Shier

Players in Enterludes Myn- they shall happen to wander.' The

strels Juglers Pedlars Tynkers & terms of 39 Eliz. c. 4 (1 597~S) are

Petye Chapmen, shall wander very similar, but I Jac. 1, c. J

abroade and have not Lycense of (1603-4), took away the exemption

two Justices of the Peace at the for noblemen's servants,

leaste, whereof one to be of the 1 Appendix F.

MINSTRELSY

holyday festivities of religious guilds1; we find them solacing
the slow progress of the pilgrimages with their ready wit and
copious narrative or song2; we find them received with favour
by bishops, even upon their visitations3, and not excluded
from a welcome in the hall of many a monastery. As early
as 1 1 80, one Galfridus, a citharoedus, held a 'corrody,' or right
to a daily commons of food and drink in the abbey of Hyde
at Winchester4. And payments for performances are frequent
in the accounts of the Augustinian priories at Canterbury5,
Bicester, and Maxtoke, and the great Benedictine houses of
Durham, Norwich, Thetford, and St. Swithin's, Winchester*,
and doubtless in those of many another cloistered retreat. The

1 Gautier, ii. 156; Ducange, s.v.
Ministelli.

2 Gautier, ii. 158. Strutt, 195,
quotes from Colt. MS. Nero, c. viii
a payment of Edw. Ill 'ministrallo
facienti ministralsiam suam coram
imagine Beatae Mariae in Veltam,
rege praesente.'. Chaucer's pil-
grims had no professional minstrels,
but the miller did as well :

' He was a janglere and a goliar-
deys, . . .
... A baggepype wel koude he

blowe and sowne,
And therwithal he broghte us
out of towne.'
It was in the absence of regular
minstrels that the pilgrims fell to
telling one another stories.

3 Gautier, ii. 160. Richard Swin-
field, bishop of Hereford, more
than once rewarded minstrels on
his episcopal rounds (J. Webb,
Household Expenses of Richard
de Swivfield, C. S. i. 152, 155).
The bishops of Durham in 1355,
Norwich in 1362, and Winchester in
1374, 1422, and 1481 had • minstrels
of honour,' like any secular noble
(see Appendix E, &c). Even the
austere Robert Grosseteste had
his private harper, if we may credit
Mannyng, 150 :

' He louede moche to here the

harpe ;
For mannys wyt hyt makyth

sharpe.
Next hys chaumbre, besyde hys

stody,

Hys harpers chaumbre was
fast therby.'
Mannyng represents Grosseteste as
excusing his predilection by a refer-
ence to King David.

4 Madox, Hist, of Exchequer,
251.

5 Norfolk Archaeology, xi. 339
(Norwich) ; Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 97 ;
Kennet, Parochial Antiq. ii. 259
(Bicester) ; Decern Script ores, 201 1
(Canterbury) ; for the rest cf. Ap-
pendix E.

6 Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 97 ; iii. 118,
quotes from the Register of St.
Swithin's amongst the Wolvesey
MSS.; in 1338 ' cantabat ioculator
quidam nomine Herebertus canti-
cum Colbrondi, necdum gestum
Emmae reginae a iudicio ignis
liberatae, in aula prions': in 1374
' In festo Alwynis episcopi ... in
aula conventus sex ministralli, cum
quatuor citharisatoribus, faciebant
ministralcias suas. Et post cenam,
in magna camera arcuata domini
Prioris, cantabant idem gestum . . .
Veniebant autem dicti ioculatores
a castello domini regis et ex familia
episcopi.' The 'canticum Colbrondi'
was doubtless a romance of Guy of
Warwick, of which Winchester is
the locality. Fragments of early
fourteenth-century English versions
exist (Ten Brink, i. 246; Jusserand,
E. L. i. 224 ; Zupitza, Guy of War-
wick, E. E. T. S. ; G. L. Morrill,
Speculum Gy de Warewyke, E. E.
T. S. lxxxi).

THE MINSTREL LIFE 57

Minorite chroniclers relate, how at the time of the coming of
the friars in 1224 two of them were mistaken for minstrels by
the porter of a Benedictine grange near Abingdon, received
by the prior and brethren with unbecoming glee, and when
the error was discovered, turned out with contumely1. At
such semi-religious foundations also, as the college of St. Mary
at Winchester, or Waynflete's great house of St. Mary
Magdalen in Oxford, minstrels of all degrees found, at least
by the fifteenth century, ready and liberal entertainment 2.

How, then, is one to reconcile this discrepancy between the
actual practice of the monasteries and the strict, the uncom-
promising prohibition of minstrelsy in rule and canon ? An
incomplete answer readily presents itself. The monks being
merely human, fell short of the ideal prescribed for them.
We do not now learn for the first time, that the ambitions
of the pious founder, the ecclesiastical law-giver, the patristic
preacher, were one thing ; the effective daily life of churchmen
in many respects quite another. Here, as in matters of even
more moment, did mediaeval monasticism ' dream from deed
dissever ' —

• The reule of Seint Maure or of Seint Beneit,
By-cause that it was old and som-del streit
This ilke monk leet olde thinges pace,
And held after the newe world the space.'

True enough, but not the whole truth. It doubtless explains
the behaviour of the Benedictines of Abingdon ; but we can
hardly suppose that when Robert de Grosseteste, the sworn
enemy of ecclesiastical abuses, kept his harper's chamber next
his own, he was surreptitiously allowing himself an illegitimate
gratification which he denied to his clergy. The fact is that the
condemnations of the Church, transferred, as we have seen,
wholesale from the mimi and histriones of the decaying

1 Bartholomaeus(Albizzi)dePisis 2 See Appendix E. At Paris the

(1385-99), Liber Conformitatum Statutes of Cornouaille College

(ed. 1590, i. 94b) ; Antoninus Episc. (1380) required abstinence from

Florentiae (1389-1459), Chronicon 'ludis mimorum, ioculatorum, hi-

(ed. 1586, iii. 752) 'alterius linguae strionum, goliardorum, et consimi-

ioculatores eos existimans ' ; cf. A. lium.' Bulaeus, v. 782, gives another

Wood, Hist, et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. Paris regulation allowing ' mimi, ad

(1674), i. 69; City of Oxford summum duo' on Twelfth Night

(O. H. S.), ii. 349. (Rashdall, ii. 674).

58 MINSTRELSY

Empire, were honestly not applicable without qualification,
even from the ecclesiastical point of view, to their successors,
the mimi and histriones of the Middle Ages. The traditions
of the Roman stage, its manners, its topics, its ethical code,
became indeed a large part of the direct inheritance of min-
strelsy. But, as we have seen, they were far from being the
whole of that inheritance. The Teutonic as well as the Latin
element in the civilization of western Europe must be taken
into account. The minstrel derives from the disreputable
planipes ; he derives also from the scop, and has not altogether
renounced the very different social and ethical position which
the scop enjoyed. After all, nine-tenths of the secular music
and literature, something even of the religious literature, of
the Middle Ages had its origin in minstrelsy. Practically,
if not theoretically, the Church had to look facts in the face,
and to draw a distinction between the different elements and
tendencies that bore a single name. The formularies, of course,
continued to confound all minstrels under the common con-
■demnation of ioculatores. The Church has never been good
at altering its formularies to suit altered conditions. But
it has generally been good at practical compromises. And
in the case of minstrelsy, a practical compromise, rough
enough, was easily arrived at.

The effective conscience of the thirteenth-century Church
had clearly come to recognize degrees in the ethical status of
the minstrels. No more authoritative exponent of the official
morals of his day can be desired than St. Thomas Aquinas,
and St. Thomas Aquinas is very far from pronouncing an
unqualified condemnation of all secular entertainment. The
profession of an histrio, he declares, is by no means in itself
unlawful. It was ordained for the reasonable solace of
humanity, and the histrio who exercises it at a fitting time
and in a fitting manner is not on that account to be regarded
as a sinner 1. Another contemporary document is still more

1 Thomas Aqu'mas,Summa Theo- manae, deputari possunt aliqua offi-

logiae (ti274), ii. 2, quaest. 168, cia licita. et ideo etiam officium

art. 3 ' Sicut dictum est, ludus histrionum, quod ordinatur ad sola-

est necessarius ad conversationem tium hominibus exhibendum, non

vitae humanae. ad omnia autem, est secundum se illicitum, nee sunt

quae sunt utilia conversationi hu- in statu peccati : dummodo moderate

THE MINSTREL LIFE

explicit. This is the Penitential written at the close of the
thirteenth century by Thomas de Cabham, sub-dean of Salis-
bury and subsequently archbishop of Canterbury1. In the
course of his analysis of human frailty, Thomas de Cabham
makes a careful classification from the ethical point of view,
of minstrels. There are those who wear horrible masks, or
entertain by indecent dance and gesture. There are those
again who follow the courts of the great, and amuse by satire
and by raillery. Both these classes are altogether damnable.
Those that remain are distinguished by their use of musical
instruments. Some sing wanton songs at banquets. These
too are damnable, no less than the satirists and posture-
mongers. Others, however, sing of the deeds of princes,
and the lives of the saints. To these it is that the name
ioculatores more strictly belongs, and they, on no less an
authority than that of Pope Alexander himself2, may be
tolerated.

Of the three main groups of minstrels distinguished by
Thomas de Cabham, two correspond roughly to the two
broad types which, from the point of view of racial tradition,
we have already differentiated. His musicians correspond
to the Teutonic gleemen and their successors ; his posture-
mongers and buffoons to the Roman mimi and their successors.

ludo utantur, id est, non utendo
aliquibus illicitis verbis vel factis ad
ludum, et non adhibendo ludum
negotiis et temporibus indebitis . . .
unde illi, qui moderate iis subveni-
unt, non peccant, sed iusta faciunt,
mercedem ministerii eorum iis at-
tribuendo. si qui autem superflue
sua in tales consumunt, vel etiam
sustentant illos histriones qui illici-
tis ludis utuntur, peccant, quasi eos
in peccatis foventes. unde Augus-
tinus dicit, super loan, quod donare
res suas histriotiibus vitium est
immane? &c, &c

1 Cf. Appendix G.

2 Another version of this story is
given by Petrus Cantor (ob. 1197),
Verbum Abbreviatutn, c. 84 (P. L.
ccv. 254) ' Ioculatori cuidam papa
Alexander (Alex. Ill) nee concessit
vivere de officio suo, nee ei penitus

interdixit.' In c. 49 of the same
work Petrus Cantor inveighs learn-
edly Contra dantes histrionibus.
Doubtless the Alexander in ques-
tion is Alexander III (11 59-81),
though the (Alex. Ill) above may
be due to the seventeenth-century
editor, Galopinus. A hasty glance
at the voluminous and practically
unindexed decrees and letters of
Alexander III in P. L. cc. and
Jaffe, Regesta Pontificum Roma-
norum (ed. 2, 1885-8), ii. 145-418,
has not revealed the source of the
story ; and I doubt whether the
Pope's decision, if it was ever given,
is to be found in black and white.
The two reports of it by Thomas
de Cabham and Petrus Cantor are
barely consistent. In any case, it
never got into the Gregorian De-
cretals.

60 MINSTRELSY

Who then are Thomas de Cabham's third and intermediate
group, the satirists whose lampoons beset the courts of the
great ? Well, raillery and invective, as we have seen, were
common features of minstrelsy ; but Gautier may very likely
be right when he surmises that Thomas de Cabham has par-
ticularly in mind the scolares vagautes, who brought so much
scandal upon the Church during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries 1. Some of these were actually out at elbows and
disfrocked clerks ; others were scholars drifting from univer-
sity to university, and making their living meantime by their
wits ; most of them were probably at least in minor orders.
But practically they lived the life of the minstrels, tramping
the road with them, sharing the same temptations of wine,
women, and dice, and bringing into the profession a trained
facility of composition, and at least a flavour of classical learn-
ing 2. They were indeed the main intermediaries between the
learned and the vernacular letters of their day ; the spilth of
their wit and wisdom is to be found in the burlesque Latin verse
of such collections as the Carrnina Bur ana, riotous lines, by no
means devoid of poetry, with their half-humorous half-pathetic
burden,

' In taberna quando sumus
Non curamus quid sit humus3.'

And especially they were satirists, satirists mainly of the
hypocrisy, cupidity and evil living of those in the high places
of the Church, for whom they conceived a grotesque expression
in Bishop Golias, a type of materialistic prelate, in whose
name they wrote and whose pueri or discipuli they declared
themselves to be 4. Goliardi, goliardenses, their reputation in

1 Gautier, ii. 42 ; Be'dier, 389 ; verse are Schmeller, Carrnina
Ten Brink, i. 186; Ducange, s.vv. Burana (ed. 3, 1894), and T.Wright,
Colia, &c; O. Hubatsch, Lat. Va- Latin Poems attributed to Walter
gantenlieder des Mittelalters (1870). Mapes (C. S. 1 841): for others cf.

2 Le Dfyartement des Livres Hubatsch, 16. Latin was not un-
(Me"on, N. R. i. 404) : known amongst lay minstrels : cf.

' A Bouvines delez Dinant Deus Bordeors Ribauz (Montai-

Li perdi-je Ovide le grant . . . glon-Raynaud, i. 3) :
Mon Lucan et mon Juvenal ' Mais ge sai aussi bien conter,

Oubliai-je a Bonival, Et en roumanz et en latin.'

Eustace le grant et Virgile * Hubatsch, 15. The origin,

Perdi aus dez a Abeville.' precise meaning, and mutual rela-

8 The chief collections of goliardic tions of the terms Golias, goliardi

THE MINSTREL LIFE

the eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities was of the worst, and
their ill practices are coupled with those of the minstrels in
many a condemnatory decree 1.

It is not with the goliardi then, that Thomas de Cabham's
relaxation of the strict ecclesiastical rigours is concerned.
Neither is it, naturally enough, with the lower minstrels of the
mimns tradition. Towards these Thomas de Cabham, like
his predecessors, is inexorable. And even of the higher min-
strels the musicians and singers, his toleration has its limits.
He discriminates. In a sense, a social and professional sense,
all these higher minstrels fall into the same class. But from
the ethical point of view there is a very marked distinction
amongst them. Some there are who haunt taverns and merry-

are uncertain. Probably the goli-
ardic literature arose in France,
rather than in England with Walter
Mapes, the attribution to whom of
many of the poems is perhaps due
to a confusion of G[olias] with
G[ualterus] in the MSS. Giraldus
Cambrensis (ob. 1217), Speculum
Ecclesiae, says ' Parasitus quidam
Golias nomine nostris diebus gulo-
sitate pariter et leccacitate famosis-
simus ... in papam et curiam
Romanam carmina famosa . . . evo-
muit': but the following note points
to a much earlier origin for Golias
and his pueri, and this is upheld by
W. Scherer, Gesch. d. deutsch. Dich-
tung im II. unci 12. Jahrh. 16.

1 Early decrees forbidding the
clergy to be ioculatores are given on
p. 39. More precise is the order
of Gautier of Sens (t 913) in his
Constitutiones, c. 13 (Mansi, xviii.
324) ' Statuimus quod clerici ribaldi,
maxime qui dicuntur de familia
Goliae, perepiscopos,archidiaconos,
officiates, et decanos Christianitatis,
tonderi praecipianturveletiam radi,
ita quod eis non remaneat tonsura
clericalis : ita tamen quod sine
periculo et scandalo ita fiant.' If
Mansi's date is right, this precedes
by three centuries the almost iden-
tical Cone, of Rouen, c. 8 (Mansi,
xxiii. 215), and Cone, of Castle
Gonther (Tours), c. 21 (Mansi,

xxiii. 237), both in 1231. Gautier,
Les Tropaires, i. 186, dwells on
the influence of the goliardi on the
late and ribald development of the
tropes, and quotes Cone, of Treves
(1227), c. 9 (Mansi, xxiii. 33) 'prae-
cipimus ut omnes sacerdotes non
permittant trutannos et alios vagos
scholares aut goliardos cantare
versus super Sanctits et Agnus Dei.'
On their probable share in the Feast
of Fools cf. ch. xiv. For later legis-
lation cf. Hubatsch, 14, 95, and the
passage from the Liber Sextus of
Boniface VIII on p. 39. It lasts to
the Cone. Frisingense (1440) ' sta-
tuimus ne clerici mimis, iocula-
toribus, histrionibus, buffonibus,
galliardis, largiantur' (Labbe, xiii.
1 286). By this time 'goliard ' seems
little more than a synonym for
'minstrel.' The 'mynstralle, a
gulardous,' of Mannyng, 148, does
not appear to be a clerk, while
Chaucer's 'goliardeys' is the Miller
(C. T. prol. 560). On the other
hand, Langland's 'Goliardeys, a
glotoun of wordes' {Piers Plowman,
prol. 139), speaks Latin. Another
name for the goliardi occurs in an
Epistola Guidonis S. Laurentii in
Lucina Cardinalis,\x (1266, Hartz-
heim, iii. 807) against ' vagi scolares,
qui Eberdini vocantur,' and who
' divinum invertunt officium, unde
laici scandalizantur.'

62 MINSTRELSY

makings with loose songs of love and dalliance. These it is
not to be expected that the holy mother Church should in any-
way countenance. Her toleration must be reserved for those
more reputable performers who find material for their ve.rse
either in the life and conversation of the saints and martyrs
themselves, or at least in the noble and inspiring deeds of
national heroes and champions. Legends of the saints and
gests of princes : if the minstrels will confine themselves to
the celebration of these, then, secure in the pronouncement of
a pope, they may claim a hearing even from the devout. It
would be rash to assert that even the comparatively liberal
theory of Thomas de .Cabham certainly justified in all cases
the practice of the monasteries. But it is at least noteworthy
that in several instances where the subjects of the minstrelsy
presented for the delectation of a cowled audience remain
upon record, they do fall precisely within the twofold defini-
tion which he lays down. At Winchester in 1338 the minstrel
/Herbert sang the song of Colbrond (or Guy of Warwick), and
the gest of the miraculous deliverance of Queen Emma ;
while at Bicester in 1432 it was the legend of the Seven
Sleepers of Ephesus that made the Epiphany entertainment
of the assembled canons.

If now we set aside the very special class of ribald galiardi,
and if we set aside also the distinction drawn by Thomas de
Cabham on purely ethical grounds between the minstrels of
the love-songs and the minstrels of saintly or heroic gest, the
net result is the twofold classification of higher and lower
minstrels already familiar to us. Roughly — it must always be
borne in mind how roughly — it corresponds on the one hand
to the difference between the Teutonic and the Roman tradi-
tion, on the other to the distinction between the established
' minstrel of honour ' and his unattached rival of the road.
And there is abundant evidence that such a distinction was
generally present, and occasionally became acute, in the con-
sciousness of the minstrels themselves. The aristocrats of
minstrelsy, a Baudouin or a Jean de Conde, or a Watriquet de
Couvin, have very exalted ideas as to the dignity of their
profession. They will not let you, if they can help it, put the
grans menestreus on the same level with every-day Jang-

THE MINSTREL LIFE

Icttr of poor attainments and still poorer repute l. In the Dit
des Tabotireurs again it is a whole class, the joncurs de viellc,
who arise to vindicate their dignity and to pour scorn upon
the humble and uninstructed drummers 2. But the most in-
structive and curious evidence comes from Provence. It was
in 1273, wnen the amazing growth of Provencal poetry was
approaching its sudden decay, that the last of the great trouba-
dours, Guiraut de Riquier, addressed a verse Supplicatio to
Alphonso X of Castile on the state of minstrelsy. He points
out the confusion caused by the indiscriminate grouping of
poets, singers, and entertainers of all degrees under the title
oi joglars, and begs the king, as high patron of letters, to take
order for it. A reply from Alphonso, also in verse, and also,
one may suspect, due to the fertile pen of Guiraut Riquier,
is extant. Herein he establishes or confirms a fourfold
hierarchy. At the head come two classes, the doctors de
trobar and the trobaires, who are composers, the former of
didactic, the latter of ordinary songs and melodies. Beneath
these are the joglars proper, instrumentalists and reciters of
delightful stories, and beneath these again the bufos, the enter-
tainers of common folk, who have really no claim to be con-
sidered as joglars .at all 3. One of the distinctions here made
is new to us. The difference between doctor de trobar and
trobaire is perhaps negligible. But that between the trobaire

1 BaudouindeCondeinhisGw/^.r
des Hiraus contrasts the ' grans
menestreus,' the

' Maistres de sa menestrandie,

Qui bien viele ou ki bien die

De bouce '
with the 'felons et honteux,' who
win pence,

Tun por faire l'ivre,

L'autre le cat, le tiers le sot,'

while in Les fctats du Monde his

son Jean sets up a high standard

of behaviour for the true minstrels :

' Soies de cuer nes et polis,

Courtois, envoisies, et jolis,

Pour les boinnes gens solacier'
(Scheler, Dits et Contes de Bau-
donin de Condd et de son fits Jean
deConde", i. 154; ii. 377). Cf. Watri-
quet de Couvin, Dis dufot menestrel
(ed. Scheler, 367) :

1 Menestriex se doit maintenir
Plus simplement c'une pu-

C-Cltj« • • •

Menestrel qui veut son droit

faire
Ne doit le jangleur contrefaire,
Mais en sa bouche avoir tous dis
Douces paroles et biaus dis,
Estre nds, vivre purement.'
These three writers belong to the
end of the thirteenth and the begin-
ning of the fourteenth century.

2 A. ]ubina.l, Jongleurs et Trou-
veres, 165. Cf. Gautier, ii. 78 ;
Bedier, 418.

3 F. Diaz, Poesie der Trouba-
dours (ed. Bartsch), 63 ; K. Bartsch,
Grundriss der provensalischen
Litcratur, 25 ; F. Hueffer, The
Troubadours, 63. Diaz, op- at. 297,
prints the documents.

64 MINSTRELSY

or composer and the joglar or executant of poetry, is an
important one. It is not, however, so far as the Teutonic
element in minstrelsy goes, primitive. The scopas and the
French or Anglo-Norman ioculatores up to the twelfth century
composed their verses as a class, and sang them as well \ In
Provence, however, the Teutonic element in minstrelsy must
have been of the slightest, and perhaps the Roman tradition,
illustrated by the story of Laberius, of a marked barrier
between composing and executing, had vaguely lingered. At
any rate it is in Provence, in the eleventh century, that the
distinction between trobaire and joglar makes its appearance.
It never became a very complete one. The trobaire was
generally, not always, of gentle or burgess birth ; sometimes
actually a king or noble. In the latter case he contented
himself with writing his songs, and let the joglar s spread them
abroad. But the bulk of the trobaires lived by their art.
They wandered from castle to castle, alone with a vielle, or
With, joglar s in their train, and although they mingled with their
hosts on fairly equal terms, they did not disdain to take their
rewards of horse or mantle or jewel, just like any common
performer. Moreover, they confined themselves to lyric
poetry, leaving the writing of epic, so far as epic was abroad in
Provence, to the joglars 2. From Provence, the trobaire spread
to other countries, reappearing in the north of France and
England as the trouvere. We seem to trace an early trouvere
in Lucas de Barre in the time of Henry I. But it is Eleanor
of Poitiers, daughter of the trobaire count William of Poitiers,
and mother of the trouvere Richard Cceur de Lion, who
appears as the chief intermediary between north and south.
The intrusion of the trouvere was the first step in the degrada-
tion of minstrelsy. Amongst the Anglo-Saxons, even apart
from the cantilenae of the folk, the professional singer had
no monopoly of song. Hrothgar and Alfred harped with their
scopas. But if there had been a similar tendency amongst the

1 There is nothing to show that ii. 2. 15; Gautier, ii. 45, 58. The

Scilling, the companion of Widsith commonest of phrases in trouba-

(Widsith, 104), was of an inferior dour biography is ' cantet et trobet.'

gra(je. The term trobador is properly the

3 2 Hueffer, 52; G. Paris, 182: accusative case of trobaire.
A. Stimming in Grober's Grundriss,

THE MINSTREL LIFE 65

continental Teutons who merged in the French and Norman-
French, it had been checked by the complete absorption of
all literary energies, outside the minstrel class, in neo-Latin.
It was not until the twelfth century, and as has been
said, under Provencal influence, that secular-minded clerks,
and exceptionally educated nobles, merchants, or officials,
began to devote themselves to the vernacular, and by so doing
to develop the trouvere type. The trouvere had the advan-
tage of the minstrel in learning and independence, if not in
leisure ; and though the latter long held his own by the side
of his rival, he was fated in the end to give way, and to con-
tent himself with the humbler task of spreading abroad what
the trouvire wrote \ By the second quarter of the fourteenth
century, the conquest of literature by the bourgeoisie was com-
plete. The interest had shifted from the minstrel on the hall
floor to the burgher or clerk in the puy ; the prize of a success-
ful poem was no longer a royal mantle, but a laureate crown or
the golden violet of the jcux floraux ; and its destiny less to
be recited at the banquet, than read in the bower. In England
the completion of the process perhaps came a little later, and
was coincident with the triumph of English, the tongue of the
bourgeois, over French, the tongue of the noble. The full
flower of minstrelsy had been the out-at-elbows vagabond,
Rutebeuf. The full flower of the trouvere is the comptroller
of the customs and subsidies of the port of London, Geoffrey
Chaucer.

The first distinction, then, made by Guiraut Riquier, that
between Irobairc andjog/ar, implies a development from within
minstrelsy itself that was destined one day to overwhelm it.
But the second, that between the j'og/ar and the bufo, is precisely
the one already familiar to us, between the minstrels of the

1 Petrarch, Epist. Rerum Senil. cuniasquaerunt,et vestes et munera.'

v. 3 ' sunt homines non magni inge- Fulke of Marseilles, afterwards

nii,magnae vero memoriae, magnae- bishop of Toulouse, wrote songs in

que diligentiae, sed maioris auda- his youth. He became an austere

ciae, qui regum ac potentum aulas Cistercian ; but the songs had got

frequentant, de proprio nudi, vestiti abroad, and whenever he heard one

autem carminibus alienis, dumque of them sung by a joglar^ he would

quid ab hoc, aut ab illo exquisitius eat only bread and water [Scrmooi

materno praesertim charactere die- Robert de Sorbonne in Haureau,

turn sit, ingenti expressione pronun- Man. Fr. xxiv. 2. 2S6).
ciant, gratiam sibi nobilium, et PC-
chambers. 1 F

66 MINSTRELSY

scdp and the minstrels of the mimus tradition. And, as has
been said, it is partly, if not entirely, identical with that
which grew up in course of time between the protected
minstrels of the court and of great men's houses, and their
vagrant brethren of the road. This general antithesis between
the higher and lower mintrelsy may now, perhaps, be regarded
as established. It was the neglect of it, surely, that led to
that curious and barren logomachy between Percy and Ritson,
in which neither of the disputants can be said to have had
hold of more than a bare half of the truth1. And it runs
through the whole history of minstrelsy. It became acute,
no doubt, with the growth in importance of the minstrels
of honour in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But
it had probably been just as acute, if not more so, at the
very beginning of things, when the clash of Teutonic and
Roman civilization first brought the bard face to face with the
serious rivalry of the mime. Bard and mime merged without
ever becoming quite identical ; and even at the moment when
this process was most nearly complete, say in the eleventh
century, the jouglerie seigneuriale \ to use Magnin's happy
terms, was never quite the same thing as the jouglerie foraine
et populaire 2, least of all in a country like England where
differences of tongue went to perpetuate and emphasize the
breach.

Nevertheless, the antithesis may easily be pushed too far.
After all, the minstrels were entertainers, and therefore their
business was to entertain. Did the lord yawn over a gest or a
saintly legend ? the discreet minstrel would be well advised to

1 In the first edition of his Reliques the two, for neither appreciated the

(1765), Percy gave the mediaeval wide variety covered by a common

minstrel as high a status as the name. On the controversy, cf.

Norse scald or Anglo-Saxon scop. Minto in Enc. Brit. s. v. Minstrels,

This led to an acrid criticism by Courthope, i. 426-31. and H. B.

Ritson who, in his essay On the Wheatley's Introduction to his edi-

ancient English Minstrels in An- tion of Percy's Reliques, xiii-xv.

cient Songs and Ballads (1829), Percy in his later editions profited

easily showed the low repute in largely by Ritson's criticism; a

which many minstrels were held, careful collation of these is given

See also his elaborate Dissertation in Schroer's edition (1889).
on Romance and Minstrelsy in his 2 Magnin, Journal des Savants

Ancient English Metrical Romances (1846), 545.
( 1 802). The truth really lay between

THE MINSTREL LIFE 67

drop high art, and to substitute some less exacting, even if
less refined fashion of passing the time. The instincts of boor
and baron were not then, of course, so far apart as they are
nowadays. And as a matter of fact we find many of the
most eminent minstrels boasting of the width and variety of
their accomplishments. Thus of Baudouin II, count of Guisnes
(i 169-1206), it is recorded that he might have matched the
most celebrated professionals, not only in chansons de gestes
and romans daventure but also in the fabliaux which formed
the delight of the vulgar bourgeoisie \ Less aristocratic per-
formers descended even lower than Baudouin de Guisnes. If
we study the repertoires of such Jongleurs as the diabolic one in
Gautier de Coincy's miracle2, or Daurel in the romance of
Daurel et Betonz, or the disputants who vaunt their respective
proficiencies in Des Deus Bordeors Ribauz*, we shall find that
they cover not only every conceivable form of minstrel literature
proper, but also tricks with knives and strings, sleight of hand,
dancing and tumbling. Even in Provence, the Enseignamens
for joglars warn their readers to learn the arts of imitating
birds, throwing knives, leaping through hoops, showing off per-
forming asses and dogs, and dangling marionettes 5. So that

1 Lambertus Ardensis, Chronicon, Pueis pres l[a] arpa, a .ij. laisses
c. 81 (ed. Godefroy Menilglaise, 1 75) notatz,

' quid plura ? tot et tantorum ditatus Et ab la viola a los gen depor-

est copia librorum ut Augustinum tat[z],

in theologia, Areopagitam Diony- Sautaetomba; tuh s'en son ale-

sium in philosophia, Milesium fabu- gratz.'_

larium in naeniis gentium, in canti- 4 Montaiglon-Raynaud, i. I :

lenis gestoriis, sive in eventuris ' Ge sai contes, ge sai flabeax ;

nobilium, sive etiam in fabellis igno- Ge sai conter beax dix noveax,

bilium, ioculatores quosque nomi- Rotruenges viez et noveles,

natissimos aequiparare putaretur.' Et sirventois et pastorels.

2 F 'reymond, Jongleurs et Menes- Ge sai le flabel du Denier,
tre Is, 34 : ...._.

' II est de tout bons menesterieux : Si sai de Parceval l'estoire,

II set peschier, il set chacier,

II set trop bien genz solacier ; Ge sai joer des baasteax,

II set chancons, sonnez et fables, Et si sai joer des costeax,

II set d'eschez, il set des tables, Et de la corde et de la fonde,

II set d'arbalestre et d'airon.' Et de toz les beax giex du monde,

3 Daurel et Beton (ed. Meyer,

Soc. des anc. textes fr. 1886), 1206 : De totes les chansons dc geste.'

1 El va enant, a lor des jocz mos- 6 Three of these Enseignamens,

tratz, by Guiraut de Cabreira (tii7o),

Dels us e dels altres, qu'el ne Guiraut de Calanso (t 1200), and

sap pro asatz. Bertran de Paris (t 1250), are

F 2

68 MINSTRELSY

one discerns the difference between the lower and the higher
minstrels to have been not so much that the one did not sink
so low, as that the other, for lack of capacity and education,
did not rise so high.

The palmy days of minstrelsy were the eleventh, twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. The germ of decay, however, which
appeared when the separation grew up between trouvere and
jongleur, and when men began to read books instead of listen-
ing to recitations, was further developed by the invention of
printing. For then, while the trouvere could adapt himself
readily enough to the new order of things, the jongleur1 s occu-
pation was gone. Like Benedick he might still be talking, but
nobody marked him. Eyes cast down over a page of Chaucer
or of Caxton had no further glitter or tear for him to win \
The fifteenth, and still more the sixteenth century, witness the
complete break-up of minstrelsy in its mediaeval form. The
mimes of course endured. They survived the overthrow of
mediaevalism, as they had survived the overthrow of the
Empire 2. The Tudor kings and nobles had still their jugglers,
their bearwards, their domestic buffoons, jesters or fools 3.
Bearbaiting in Elizabethan London rivalled the drama in its
vogue. Acrobats and miscellaneous entertainers never ceased
to crowd to every fair, and there is applause even to-day in

printed by K. Bartsch, Denkmdler adds : ' At hie tamen in praeceptore

der provenzalischen Litteratur, 85- arcendo diligens, libenter patitur

101. Cf. Bartsch, Grundriss der scurras et mimos (qui digna lupanari

prov. Lit. 25 ; Hueffer, The Trou- in sacro cubiculo coram principe

badours, 66: Hist. Litt. xvii. 581. cantillent)admitti' (Echols, Memoir

1 Bernhard, iii. 397, gives some of Hctiry Fitzroy'vci Camden Miscel-
French references, one dated 1395, lany, iii. xxxviii).

for ' menestriers de bouches,' a 3 For the ioculator regis, cf. Ap-

term signifying minstrels who sang pendix E, and Leach, Beverley MSS.

as well as played instruments. 179. He is called 'jugler' in N.H.B.

2 There are numerous payments 67. Is he distinct from the royal
to jugglers, tumblers and dancers in gestator (gestour, jester) ? Both
the Household Accounts of Henry appear in the Shrewsbury accounts
VII (Bentley, Excerpta Historica, (s. ann. 1521, 1549)- In 1554 both
85-113 ; Collier, i. 50). A letter to le jugler and le gester were enter-
Wolsey of July 6. 1527, from R. tained. The gestator seems to have
Croke, the tutor of Henry VIII's merged in the stultus or court fool
natural son, the Duke of Richmond, (ch. xvi). The accounts in App. E
complains of difficulties put in his often mention the royal bearward,
way by R. Cotton, the Clerk-comp- who remained an important official
troller of the duke*s household, and under Elizabeth.

THE MINSTREL LIFE 69

circus and music-hall for the old jests and the old somersaults
that have already done duty for upwards of twenty centuries.
But the jongleur as the thirteenth century knew him was by
the sixteenth century no more. Professional musicians there
were in plenty ; 'Sneak's noise' haunted the taverns of East-
cheap1, and instrumentalists and vocalists in royal palaces
and noble mansions still kept the name and style of minstrels.
But they were not minstrels in the old sense, for with the pro-
duction of literature, except perhaps for a song here and there,
they had no longer anything to do. That had passed into
other hands, and even the lineaments of the trouverc are
barely recognizable in the new types of poets and men of letters
whom the Renaissance produced. The old fashioned minstrel
in his style and habit as he lived, was to be presented before
Elizabeth at Kenilworth as an interesting anachronism 2. Some
of the discarded entertainers, as we shall see, were absorbed into
the growing profession of stage-players ; others sunk to be ballad
singers. For to the illiterate the story-teller still continued to
appeal. The ballad indeed, at least on one side of it, was the
detritus, as the lai had been the germ, of romance 3, and at
the very moment when Spenser was reviving romance as
a conscious archaism, it was still possible for a blind fiddler
with a ballad to offend the irritable susceptibilities of a Puritan,
or to touch the sensitive heart-strings of a Sidney4. But as
a social and literary force, the glory of minstrelsy had
departed

1 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 12. trumpet. And yet is it sung but by

2 Cf. Appendix H (i). some blind Crowder, with no rougher

3 Courthope, i. 445 ; A. Lang, voice than rude style.' For the
s.v. Ballad va. Enc. Brit, and in A Puritan view, see Stubbes, i. 169.
Collection of Ballads, xi ; Quarterly ° Ritson, ccxxiv, quotes the follow-
Review (July, 1S98) ; Henderson, ing lines, ascribed to Dr. Bull
335; G. Smith, 180. But I think (t 1597), from a Hart. MS., as the
that Gummere, B. P. passim, sue- epitaph of minstrelsy :

ceeds in showing that the element of 'When Jesus went to Jairus'

folk-poetry in balladry is stronger house

than some of the a'bove writers re- (Whose daughter was about to

cognize. dye),

4 Sidney, Afiolo^ie for Poetric He turned the minstrels out of
(ed. Arber), 46 ' Certainly I must doors.

confess my own barbarousness. I Among the rascal company :

never heard the old song of Percy Beggars they are, with one

and Douglas, that I found not my consent,

heart moved more than with a And rogues,by Act of Parliament.'

CHAPTER IV

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY

THE floor of a mediaeval court, thronged with minstrels of
every degree, provided at least as various an entertainment
as the Roman stage itself 1. The performances of the mimes,
to the accompaniment of their despised tabor or wry-necked
fife, undoubtedly made up in versatility for what they lacked
in decorum. There were the tombeors, tombcstercs or tumbleres,
acrobats and contortionists, who twisted themselves into incre-
dible attitudes, leapt through hoops, turned somersaults, walked
on their heads, balanced themselves in perilous positions.
Female tumblers, tomatriccs, took part in these feats, and
several districts had their own characteristic modes of tumbling,
such as le tour francais, le tour romain, le tour de C/iampenots2.*
Amongst the tombeors must be reckoned the rarer funambuli

1 Du Vilain au Buffet (Mont- Plowman, Passus xvi. 205 :

aiglon-Raynaud, iii. 202) : ' Ich can nat tabre ne trompe " ne

' Li quens manda les menestrels, telle faire gestes,

Et si a fet crier entr'els Farten, ne fithelen ■ at festes, ne

Qui la meillor truffe sauroit harpen,

Dire ne fere, qu'il auroit Iapen ne iogelen ' ne gentel-

Sa robe d'escarlate nueve. liche pipe,

L'uns menestrels a l'autre rueve Nother sailen ne sautrien ■ ne

Fere son mestier, tel qu'il sot, singe with the giterne.'

L'uns fet l'ivre, l'autre le sot ; 2 Gautier, ii. 63 ; Strutt, 207.

Li uns chante, li autres note, L. T. Smith, Derby Accounts (Cam-

Et li autres dit la riote, den Soc), 109, records a payment

Et li autres la jenglerie ; by Henry of Bolingbroke when in

Cil qui sevent de jouglerie Prussia in 1390-1 'cuidam tum-

Vielent par devant le conte ; blere facienti ministralciam suam.'

Aucuns i a qui fabliaus conte, See miniatures of tumblers (Strutt,

Ou il ot mainte gaberie, 211, 212), stilt-dancing (ibid. 226),

Et li autres dit YErberie, hoop-vaulting (ibid. 229), balancing

La oil il ot mainte risee.' (ibid. 232-4), a contortionist (ibid.

Cf. p. 67 ; also the similar list in 235).
Wace, Brut, 10S23, and Piers

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY

or rope-walkers, such as he whom the Corvei annals record
to have met with a sorry accident in the twelfth century1,
or he who created such a furore in the thirteenth by his
aerial descent from the cathedral at Basle2. Nor are they
very distinct from the crowd of dancers, male and female, who
are variously designated as saltatores and saltatrices, ' sau-
tours,' ' sailyours,' ' hoppesteres.' Indeed, in many medi-
aeval miniatures, the daughter of Herodias, dancing before
Herod, is represented rather as tumbling or standing on her
head than in any more subtle pose 3. A second group includes
the jugglers in the narrower sense, the jouers des costeax who
tossed and caught knives and balls 4, and the practitioners of
sleight of hand, who generally claimed to proceed by nigre-
mance or sorcery 5. The two seem to have shared the names
of prestigiatores or tregetours 6. Other mimes, the bastaxi,
ox jotters des baste ax, brought round, like the Punch and Judy
men of our own day, little wooden performing puppets or
marionettes7. Others, to whom Thomas de Cabham more
particularly refers, came in masked as animals, and played the
dog, the ass or the bird with appropriate noises and behaviour8.

1 Annates Corbeienses, s. a. 1135
(Leibnitz, Rer. Brunsv. Script, ii.
307) 'funambulus inter lusus suos
in terrain deiectus.'

2 Gautier, ii. 64, quotes Annates
Basilienses, s.a. 1276 'Basileam
quidam corpore debilis venit, qui
funem protensum de campanili
maioris ecclesiae ad domum can-
toris manibus et pedibus descende-
bat ' ; for later English examples
cf. ch. xxiv.

3 Strutt, 172, 176, 209; Jusserand,
i. 214, and E. W. L. 23.

4 Strutt, 173, 197; Jusserand,
E. W. L. 212 ; Wright, 33-7.

5 Gautier, ii. 67, quotes Joufrois,
1 146 :

1 Ainz veissiez toz avant traire
Les jogleors et maint jou faire.
Li uns dan^oit . . .
Li autre ovrent de nigremance.'

6 Strutt, 194, quotes from Cott.
MS. Nero, c. viii, a payment 'Ja-
nins le Cheveretter (bagpiper)
called le Tregettour,' for playing

before Edw. II. Collier, i. 30, quotes

Lydgate, Daunce de Macabre (Harl.

116):

' Maister John Rykell, sometyme

tregitoure

Of noble Henry kynge of Eng-

londe,
And of Fraunce the myghty

conqueroure,
For all the sleightes and turn-

yngs of thyne honde,
Thou must come nere this
daunce to understonde.

Lygarde de mayne now helpeth
me right nought.'

7 Ducange( s. v. bastaxi ; Gau-
tier, ii. 11; C. Magnin, Hist, des
Marionnettes en Europe (ed.2,iS62);
cf. ch. xxiv. Bastaxus seems to be
the origin of the modern bateleur,
used in a wide sense of travelling
entertainers.

8 Du Meril, Com. 74; Strutt,
253 ; Jusserand, E. W. L. vi. 218.
Amongst the letters commendatory

72 MINSTRELSY

Others, again, led round real animals ; generally bears or apes,
occasionally also horses, cocks, hares, dogs, camels and even
lions 1. Sometimes these beasts did tricks ; too often they were
baited 2, and from time to time a man, lineal descendant of the
imperial gladiators, would step forward to fight with them 3. To
the gladiatorial shows may perhaps also be traced the fight
with wooden swords which often formed a part of the fun.4 And,
finally, whatever the staple of the performance, there was the
parade or preliminary patter to call the audience together, and
throughout the ' carping,' a continuous flow of rough witticism
and repartee, such as one is accustomed to hear Joey, the
clown, in the pauses of a circus, pass off on Mr. Harris, the
ring-master5. Here came in the especial talents of the
scurra, bordcor or japere, to whom the moralists took such
marked exception. ' L'uns fet tivre, V autre le sot,' says the
fabliau ; and indeed we do not need the testimony of Thomas
de Cabham or of John of Salisbury to conclude that such
buffoonery was likely to be of a ribald type 6.

Even in the high places of minstrelsy there was some mea-
sure of variety. A glance at the pay-sheet of Edward I's

of minstrels quoted by Gautier, ii. The minstrelles synge, the joge-

1 09, is one ' De illo qui scit volucrum lours carpe.'

exprimere cantilenas et voces asi- 6 John of Salisbury, Polycraticus,

ninas.' Baudouin de Conde" men- i. 8 ' Quorum adeo error invaluit,

tions a minstrel who 'fait le cat' ut a praeclaris domibus non arcean-

(cf. p. 63, n. 1). tur, etiam illi qui obscenis partibus

1 See figures of bears (Strutt, corporis oculis omnium earn inge-
176, 214, 239, 240), apes (ibid. 240, runt turpitudinem, quam erubescat
241 ; Jusserand, E. IV. L. 218), videre vel cynicus. Quodque magis
horses (Strutt, 243, 244), dog (ibid, mirere, nee tunc eiiciuntur, quando
246, 249), hare (ibid. 248), cock tumultuantes inferius crebro sonitu
(ibid. 249). For the ursarius and aerem foedant, et turpiter inclusum
for lion, marmoset, &c, cf. pp. 53, turpius produnt'; Adam of Bremen
68, and Appendix E. (M. G. H-), iii. 38 ' Pantomimi, qui

2 Strutt, 256. A horse-baiting is obscoenis corporis motibus oble-
figured in Strutt, 243. ctare vulgus solent.' Raine, Hist.

3 Strutt, 244, figures a combat Papers from Northern Registers
between man and horse. Gautier, (R. S.), 398, prints a letter of
ii. 66, cites Ada SS. Jan. iii. 257 Archbishop Zouche of York on the
for the intervention of" St. Poppo indecent behaviour of some clerks
when a naked man smeared with of the bishop of Durham in York
honey was to fight bears before the Minster on Feb. 6, 1349, 'subtus
emperor Henry IV (t 1048). imaginem crucifixi ventositates per

4 Strutt, 260, 262. posteriora dorsi cum foedo strepitu

5 Adam Davie (t 1312) : more ribaldorum emittere fecerunt
' Merry it is in halle to here the pluries ac turpiter et sonore.'

harpe,

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 73

Whitsuntide feast will show that the minstrels who aspired to
be musicians were habitually distinguished by the name of the
musical instrument on which they played. They are vidula-
torcs, citharistac, trumpatores, vilours, gigours, crouderesy
har pours, citolers, lu tours, truntpours, tabor curs and the like.
The harp (cithara), played by twitching the strings, had been
the old instrument of the Teutons, but in the Middle Ages it
came second in popularity to the vielle (vidula), which was
also a string instrument, but, like the modern fiddle, was played
with a bow. The drum {tympakum, tabour) was, as we have
seen, somewhat despised, and relegated to the mimes. The
trumpeters appear less often singly than in twos and threes,
and it is possible that their performances may have been
mainly ceremonial and of a purely instrumental order. But
the use of music otherwise than to accompany the voice does
not seem to have gone, before the end of the thirteenth century,
much beyond the signals, flourishes and fanfares required for
wars, triumphs and processions. Concerted instrumental
music was a later development 1. The ordinary functic^n of
the harp or vielle in minstrelsy was to assist the voice of the
minstrel in one of the many forms of poetry which the middle
ages knew. These were both lyric and narrative. The distinc-
tion is roughly parallel to that made by Thomas de Cabham
when he subdivides his highest grades of minstrels into those
who sing wanton songs at taverns, and those more properly
called ioculatores who solace the hearts of men with reciting
the deeds of the heroes and the lives of the saints. The
themes of mediaeval lyric, as of all lyric, are largely wanton-
ness and wine ; but it must be borne in mind that Thomas de
Cabham's classification is primarily an ethical one, and does
not necessarily imply any marked difference of professional
status between the two classes. The haunters of taverns and
the solacers of the virtuous were after all the same minstrels,
or at least minstrels of the same order. That the chansons,
in their innumerable varieties, caught up from folk-song, or /
devised by Provencal ingenuity, were largely in the mouths
of the minstrels, may be taken for granted. It was here,

1 Gautier, ii. 69 ; Lavoix, La Musiquc au Sihle de Saint-Louis,
i. 315; cf. Appendix C.

74, MINSTRELSY

however, that the competition of trobaire and trouvere began
earliest, and proved most triumphant, and the supreme minstrel
genre was undoubtedly the narrative. This was, in a sense,
their creation, and in it they held their own, until the laity
learned to read and the trouveres became able to eke out the
shortness of their memories by writing down or printing their
stories. With narrative, no doubt, the minstrels of highest
repute mainly occupied themselves. Harp or vielle in hand
they beguiled many a long hour for knight and chatelaine with
the interminable chansons de gestes in honour of Charlemagne
and his heroic band \ or, when the vogue of these waned, as in
time it did, with the less primitive romans daventure, of which
those that clustered round the Keltic Arthur were the widest
famed. Even so their repertory was not exhausted. They had
lais, dits and contes of every kind ; the devout contes that
Thomas de Cabham loved, historical contes, romantic contes
of less alarming proportions than the genuine romans. And
for the bourgeoisie they had those improper, witty fabliaux, so
racy of the French soil, in which the esprit gaulois, as we know
it, found its first and not its least characteristic expression.
In most of these types the music of the instrument bore its
part. The shorter lais were often accompanied musically
throughout 2. The longer poems were delivered in a chant or
recitative, the monotony of which was broken at intervals by
a phrase or two of intercalated melody, while during the rest
of the performance a few perfunctory notes served to sustain
the voice 3. And at times, especially in the later days of
minstrelsy, the harp or vielle was laid aside altogether, and the
singer became a mere story-teller. The antithesis, no infrequent
one, between minstrel, and fabulator, narrator, fableor,conteor,

1 W. Mapes, de Nugis Curia- (B.N. f. fr. 2168) of Aucassin et
Hum (Camden Soc), dist. v. prol., Nicolete preserves the musical
' Caesar Lucani, Aeneas Maronis, notation of the verse sections. Only
multis vivunt in laudibus, plurimum three musical phrases, with very
suis meritis et non minimum vigi- slight variations, are used. Two of
lantia poetarum ; nobis divinam these were probably repeated, alter-
Karolorum et Pepinorum nobilita- nately or at the singer's fancy,
tern vulgaribus rithmis sola mimo- throughout the tirade ; the third
rum concelebrat nugacitas.' provided a cadence for the clos-

2 Lavoix, ii. 295. ing line (Bourdillon, Aucassin et

3 Ibid. ii. 344. The Paris MS. Nicolette (1897), 157).

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 75

gestour, disour, segger, though all these are themselves else-
where classed as minstrels, sufficiently suggests this \ It was
principally, one may surmise, the dits and fabliaux that lent
themselves to unmusical narration ; and when prose crept in,
as in time it did, even before reading became universal, it can
hardly have been sung. An interesting example is afforded
by Aucassin et Nicole te, which is what is known as a cante-
fable. That is to say, it is written in alternate sections of
verse and prose. The former have, in the Paris manuscript,
a musical accompaniment, and are introduced with the words
' Or se cante ' ; the latter have no music, and the introduction
' Or content et dient etfablent!

A further differentiation amongst minstrels was of linguistic
origin. This was especially apparent in England. The mime
is essentially cosmopolitan. In whatever land he finds him-
self the few sentences of patter needful to introduce his tour
or his nigremance are readily picked up. It is not so with
any entertainer whose performances claim to rank, however
humbly, as literature. And the Conquest in England brought
into existence a class of minstrels who, though they were by
no means mimes, were yet obliged to compete with mimes,
making their appeal solely to the bourgeoisie and the peasants,
because their speech was not that of the Anglo-Norman lords
and ladies who formed the more profitable audiences of the
castles. The native English gleemen were eclipsed at courts
by the Taillefers and Raheres of the invading host. But they
still held the road side by side with their rivals, shorn of their
dignities, and winning a precarious livelihood from the shrunken

1 Chaucer, House of Fame, 1 1 97: (Opera, v. col. 958) 'Apud Anglos
' Of alle maner of minstrales, est simile genus hominum, quales
And gestiours, that tellen tales, apud Italos sunt circulatores, de
Bothe of weping and of game.' quibus modo dictum est; qui irrum-
Cf. Sir Thopas, 134; and Gower, punt in convivia magnatum, aut in
Con/essio Amantis, vii. 2424 : cauponas vinarias ; et argumentum
' And every menstral hadde pleid, aliquod, quod cdidicerunt, recitant ;
And every disour hadde seid.' puta mortem omnibus dominari,
The evidence of Erasmus is late, of aut laudem matrimonii. Sed quo-
course, for the hey-day of min- niam ea lingua monosyllabis fere
strelsy, but in his time there were constat,quemadmodumGermanica;
certainly English minstrels who atque illi studio vitant cantum,
merely recited, without musical nobis latrare videntur verius quam
accompaniment ; cf. Ecclesiasles loqui.'

76 MINSTRELSY

purses of those of their own blood and tongue 1. It was they
who sang the unavailing heroisms of Hereward, and, if we
may judge by the scanty fragments and records that have
come down to us, they remained for long the natural focus and
mouthpiece of popular discontent and anti-court sentiment.
In the reign of Edward III a gleeman of this type, Laurence
Minot, comes to the front, voicing the spirit of an England
united in its nationalism by the war against France ; the rest
are, for the most part, nameless2. Naturally the English
gleemen did not remain for ever a proscribed and isolated
folk. One may suspect that at the outset many of them
became bilingual. At any rate they learnt to mingle with
their Anglo-Norman confreres : they borrowed the themes of
continental minstrelsy; translating roman, fabliau and chanson
into the metres and dialects of the vernacular ; and had their
share in that gradual fusion of the racial elements of the land,
whose completion was the preparation for Chaucer.

Besides the Saxons, there were the Kelts. In the provinces
of France that bordered on Armorica, in the English counties
that marched with Wales, the Keltic harper is no unusual or
negligible figure. Whether such minstrels ranked very high
in the bardic hierarchy of their own peoples may be doubted ;
but amid alien folk they achieved popularity3. Both Giraldus

1 Ten Brink, i. 193, 225, 235, isolated corner of Europe, little
314, 322 ; Jusserand, i. 219. The touched by Latin influences, the
Old gleeman tradition was prob- bards long retained the social and
ably less interfered with in the national position which it is pro-
lowlands of Scotland than in Eng- bable they once had held in all the
land proper; cf. Henderson, Scot- Aryan peoples. Their status is
tish Vernacular Literature , 16. defined in the laws of Howel Dha

2 Ten Brink, i. 322 ; Jusserand, (t92o) and in those of Gruffyd ab
i. 360 ; Courthope, i. 197. Minot's Cynan (1100). The latter code
poems have been edited by J. Hall distinguishes three orders of bards
(Oxford, 1887). See also Wright, proper, the Pryddyd or Chair bards,
Political Songs (C.S.) and Political the Teuluwr or Palace bards, and
Poems and Songs (R.S.). Many of the Arzvyddfardd or heralds, also
these, however, are Latin. called Storiwwr, the cantores hi-

3 On Welsh bardism see H. storici of Giraldus Cambrensis. The
d'Arbois de Jubainville, Jntr. d Pryddyd and Teuluwr differ pre-
V Etude de la Litt. celtique, 63 ; cisely as poets and executants,
Stephens, Literature of the Kymry, trouveres and jongleurs. Below
8,4> 93> 97; io2 ; Ernest David, all these come the Clerwr, against
Etudes historiques sur la Poe'sie et whom official bardism from the
la Musique dans la Cambrie, 13, sixth to the thirteenth century
62-103, 147-64. In Wales, an showed an inveterate animosity.

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 77

Cambrensis and Thomas the author of Tristan speak of a
certain famosus fabulator of this class, Bledhericus or Breri
by name1. Through Breri and his like the Keltic traditions
filtered into Romance literature, and an important body of
scholars are prepared to find in lais sung to a Welsh or Breton
harp the origincs of Arthurian romance2. In England the
Welsh, like the English-speaking minstrels, had a political, as
well as a literary significance. They were the means by which
the spirit of Welsh disaffection under English rule was kept
alive, and at times fanned into a blaze. The fable of the
massacre of the bards by Edward I is now discredited, but an
ordinance of his against Keltic 'bards and rhymers' is upon
record, and was subsequently repeated under Henry IV3.

An important question now presents itself. How far, in
this heterogeneous welter of mediaeval minstrelsy, is it possible
to distinguish any elements which can properly be called
dramatic ? The minstrels were entertainers in many genres.
Were they also actors? An answer may be sought first of
all in their literary remains. The first condition of drama is
dialogue, and dialogue is found both in lyric and in narrative
minstrelsy. Naturally, it is scantiest in lyric. But there is
a group of chansons common to northern France and to
southern France or Provence, which at least tended to
develop in this direction. There are the chansons a danscr,
which are frequently a semi-dialogue between a soloist and
a chorus, the one singing the verses, the other breaking into

These are an unattached wandering Tristan (t 1 170, ed. Michel, ii. 847) :

folk, players on flutes, tambourines, ' Mes sulum 50 que j'ai oy

and other instruments meaner than N'el dient pas sulum Breri,

the tclyn or harp, and the crwth or Ky solt les gestes e les cuntes

viol which alone the bards proper De tuz les reis, de tuz les cuntes

deigned to use. Many of them had Ki orent este en Bretaingne.'

also picked up the mime-tricks of 2 G. Paris, in Hist. Litt. xxx. 1-

the foreigners. It was probably 22 ; Litt. Fr. §§ 53-5 ; Nutt,

with these Clerwr that the English Legend of the Holy Grail, 228 ;

and French neighbours of the Kelts Rhys, Arthurian Legend, 370-90.

came mainly into contact. Padel- These views have been vigorously

ford, 5, puts this contact as early as criticized by Prof. Zimmer in Gbt-

the Anglo-Saxon period. tingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1891),

1 Giraldus Cambrensis, Desc7ifilio 488, 7S5, and elsewhere.

Cambriae, i. 17 'famosus ille fabu- s David, op. cit. 13, 235 ; cf.

lator Bledhericus, qui tempora p. 54.
nostra paulo praevenit.' Thomas,

78 MINSTRELSY

a burden or refrain. There are the chansons a personnages or
chansons de mal marie'e, complaints of unhappy wives, which
often take the form of a dialogue between the woman and her
husband, her friend or, it may be, the poet, occasionally that
of a discussion on courtly love in general. There are the
atibes, of which the type is the morning dialogue between
woman and lover adapted by Shakespeare with such splendid
effect in the third act of Romeo ajid Juliet. And finally
there are the pastourelles, which are generally dialogues
between a knight and a shepherdess, in which the knight
makes love and, successful or repulsed, rides away. All these
chansons, like the chansons d'histoire or de toile, which did not
develop into dialogues, are, in the form in which we have
them, of minstrel origin. But behind them are probably folk-
songs of similar character, and M. Gaston Paris is perhaps
right in tracing them to the fetes du mai, those agricultural
festivals of immemorial antiquity in which women traditionally
took so large a part. A further word will have to be said of
their ultimate contribution to drama in a future chapter \

Other lyrical dialogues of very different type found their
way into the literature of northern France from that of Pro-
vence. These were the elaborate disputes about abstract
questions, generally of love, so dear to the artistic and scholas-
tic mind of the trobaire. There was the tenso (Fr. tencon) in
which two speakers freely discussed a given subject, each
taking the point of view which seems good to him. And
there was the joc-partitz or par timen (Fr.jeu-parti or par ture),
in which the challenger proposed a theme, indicated two
opposed attitudes towards it, and gave his opponent his choice
to maintain one or other2. Origi'nally, no doubt the tensons
and the jocs-partitz were, as they professed to be, improvised
verbal tournaments : afterwards they became little more than
academic exercises3. To the drama they have nothing to say.

1 Paris, §§ 118, 122, and Orig. 2 Paris, § 126; Orig. (passim);

(Passim) ; Jeanroy, 1, 84, 102, 387 ; Jeanroy, 45, and in Lang, et Litt.

Lang, et Litt. i. 345 ; cf. ch. viii. i. 384 ; Bartsch, Grundriss der

Texts of chansons d personnages prov. Lit. 34 ; Hueffer, The Trou-

and pastourelles in Bartsch, Alt- badours, 112; Stimming in Grober's

franzosische Romanzen und Pas- Grundriss, ii. 2. 24.

tourellen\ of aubes in Bartsch, 3 In 1386 we hear of ' des com-

Chrestomathie de Fancien francais. paingnons, pour de jeux de parture

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 79

The dialogue elements in lyric minstrelsy thus exhausted,
we turn to the wider field of narrative. But over the greater
space of this field we look in vain. If there is anything of
dialogue in the chansons de gestes and the romans it is merely
reported dialogue such as every form of narrative poetry con-
tains, and is not to the purpose. It is not until we come to
the humbler branches of narrative, the unimportant contes and
dits, that we find ourselves in the presence of dialogue proper.
Dits and fabliaux dialogue's are not rare \ There is the already
quoted Deus Bordeors Ribauz in which two jougleurs meet
and vaunt in turn their rival proficiencies in the various
branches of their common art 2. There is Rutebeuf's Chariot
et le Barbier, a similar ' fiyting ' between two gentlemen of the
road 3. There is Courtois a* Arras, a version of the Prodigal
Son story 4. There is Le Rot dAngleterre et le Jongleur
d'Ely, a specimen of witty minstrel repartee, of which more
will be said immediately. These dialogues naturally tend to
become of the nature of disputes, and they merge into that
special kind of dit, the dibat or disputoison proper. The dibat
is a kind of poetical controversy put into the mouths of two
types or two personified abstractions, each of which pleads
the cause of its own superiority, while in the end the decision
is not infrequently referred to an umpire in the fashion familiar
in the eclogues of Theocritus 6. The dSats thus bear a strong

juer et esbattre ' at Douai (Julie- ' Rutebeuf (ed. Kressner), 99.

ville, Rip. Com. 323), which looks 4 Barbazan-Me"on,i. 356. Bddier,

as if, by the end of the fourteenth 33, considers Courtois d' Arras as

century, the partures were being the oldest French comedy, a jeu

professionally performed. dramatique with intercalated narra-

1 Paris, § 109 ; Be"dier, 31. A tive by a meneur de jeu. But the

fabliau is properly a ' conte a rire fact that it ends with the words Te

en vers ' ; the term dit is applied Deum leads one to look upon it as

more generally to a number of an adaptation of a religious play ;

short poems which deal, ' souvent cf. ch. xix.

avecagre"ment,dessujetsemprunt6s 6 On the dibats in general, see

a la vie quotidienne.' Some dits Hist. Litt. xxiii. 216 sqq. ; Paris,

are satirical, others eulogistic of Litt.fr. §§ no, 155 ; Arthur Piaget,

a class or profession, others descrip- Littirature didactique in Lang.

tive. But the distinction is not very et Litt. ii. 208 ; Jeanroy, 48 ; R.

well defined, and the fabliaux are Hirzel, Der Dialog, ii. 382 ; Litera-

often called dits in the MSS. turblatt (1887), 76. A full list is

a Montaiglon-Raynaud, i. I ; ii. given by Petit, Rip. Com. 405-9.

257. The dit is also called La The dibats merge into such alle-

fengle au Ribaut el laContrejengle. gorical poems as Henri d'Andeli's

MINSTRELSY

resemblance to the lyric tencons and jeux-partis already men-
tioned. Like the chansons, they probably owe something to
the folk festivals with their ' flytings ' and seasonal songs. In
any case they are common ground to minstrelsy and to the
clerkly literature of the Middle Ages. Many of the most famous
of them, such as the Debat dc I Hivcr et dc F Etc, the Dcbat
du Vin et dc FEau, the Dcbat du Corps ct dc FAme, exist in
neo-Latin forms, the intermediaries being naturally enough
those vagantcs or wandering scholars, to whom so much of the
interaction of learned and of popular literature must be due l.
And in their turn many of the debats were translated sooner or
later into English. English literature, indeed, had had from
Anglo-Saxon days a natural affinity for the dialogue form 2,

Bataille des Vins (Barbazon-Meon,
i. 152) or Le Mariage des Sept A rts
et des Sept Vert us (Jubinal, CEuvres
de Rutcbeuf ii. 415); cf. Paris,
Lift. fr. 158.

1 Ten Brink, i. 215; Hubatsch,
24 ; Gummere, B. P. 200, 306. The
Debat de f Yver ct de V Este has the
nearest folk-lore origin ; cf. ch. ix.
Paris, Origines, 28, mentions several
Greek and Latin versions beginning
with Aesop (Halm, 414). The most
important is the ninth-century Con-
flict us Verts et Hiemis (Riese,
Anth. Lat. i. 2. 145), variously
ascribed to Bede ( Wernsdorff,
Poetae Latini Minores, ii. 239),
Alcuin (Ate. Opera, ed. Froben, ii.
612) and others. French versions
are printed in Montaiglon- Roth-
schild, Anc. Poes.fr. vi. 190, x.
41, and Jubinal, N. R. ii. 40. There
are imitations in all tongues : cf.
M. Emile Picot's note in Mont.-
Rothsch. op. cit. x. 49 ; Hist. Litt.
xxiii. 231 ; Douhet, 1441. — La Dis-
putoison du Vin et de V Iaue is
printed in Jubinal, N. R. i. 293 ;
Wright, Lat. Poems of Walter
Mapes, 299 ; Carmina Burana, 232.
It is based on the Goliae Dialogus
inter Aquam ct Vinum (Wright,
loc. cit. 87) ; cf. Hist. Litt. xxiii.
228 ; Romania, xvi. 366. — On the
complicated history of the Dcbat du
Corps et de I'Ame, see T. Batiouch-
kof in Romania, xx. 1. 513; G.

Kleinert, Ueber den Streit von Leib
und Seele; Hist. Litt. xxii. 162;
P. de Julleville, Repertoire Comique,
5, 300, 347 ; Wright, .Latin Poetns,
xxiii. 95, 321. Latin, French and
other versions are given by Wright,
and by Viollet-Leduc, Anc. The.fr.
iii. 325. — Phil lis et Flora, or De
Phyllis qui aime tin chevalier et de
Flora qui aune un prctre, is also
referred by Paris, Orig. 28, to a folk-
song beginning ; cf. //. L. xxii. 138,
165 ; Romania, xxii. 536. Latin
versions are in Carmina Burana,
155; WTright, Latin Poems of W.
Mapes, 258.— A possible influence
of the Theocritean and Virgilian
eclogues upon these debats, through
their neo-Latin forms, must be borne
in mind.

2 Wiilker, 384; Brooke, i. 139, ii.
93, 221, 268 ; Jussenmd, i. 75, 443.
The passages of dialogue dwelt on
by these writers mostly belong to the
work of Cynewulf and his school.
It has been suggested that some of
them, e.g. the A.-S. Descent into
Hell (Grein, iii. 1 75 ; cf. Anglia, xix.
137), or the dialogue between Mary
and Joseph in Cynewulf's Christ,
163 (ed. Gollancz, p. 16), may have
been intended for liturgical use by
half-choirs ; but of this there is
really no proof. Wiilker, loc. cit.,
shows clearly that the notion of a
dramatic representation was unfa-
miliar to the Anglo-Saxons.

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 81

and presents side by side with the translated de'bats others —
strifs or estrifs is the English term — of native origin x. The
thirteenth-century Harrowing of Hell is an estrif 'on a subject
familiar in the miracle plays : and for an early miracle play it
has sometimes been mistaken 2. Two or three other estrifs
of English origin are remarkable, because the interlocutors
are not exactly abstractions, but species of birds and
animals 3.

Dialogue then, in one shape or another, was part of the
minstrel's regular stock-in-trade. But dialogue by itself is not
drama. The notion of drama does not, perhaps, necessarily
imply scenery on a regular stage, but it does imply impersona-
tion and a distribution of roles between at least two performers.
Is there anything to be traced in minstrelsy that satisfies these,
conditions ? So far as impersonation is concerned, there are
several scattered notices which seem to show that it was not
altogether unknown. In the twelfth century for instance,
iElred, abbot of Rievaulx, commenting on certain unpleasing
innovations in the church services of the day, complains that
the singers use gestures just like those of histriones, fit rather
for a Iheatrum than for a house of prayer 4. The word theatrum

1 Ten Brink, i. 312. Several ritatis, ii. 23 (P. L. cxcv. 571) ' Vi-
English versions of the Debate be- deas aliquando hominem aperto ore
tween Body^and Soul are given by quasi intercluso halitu expirare,
Wright, loc. at. 334. An English non cantare, ac ridiculosa quadam
Debate and Stryfe betwene Somer vocis interceptione quasi minitari
and Wynter is in W. C. Hazlitt, silentium ; nunc agones morientium,
Early Popular Poetry, iii. 29. vel extasim patientium imitari. Inte-

2 Cf. ch. xx. rim histrionicis quibusdara gestibus
8 Ten Brink, i. 214, 309. The totum corpus agitatur, torquentur

Owl and the Nightingale (c. 1 216- labia, rotant, ludunt humeri ; et ad

72), was printed by J. Stevenson singulas quasque notas digitorum

(Roxburghe Club) ; the Thrush and flexus respondet. Et haec ridicu-

the Nightingale and the Fox and losa dissolutio vocatur religio ! . . .

the Wolf, by W. C. Hazlitt, Early Vulgus . . . miratur . . . sed lasci-

Popular Poetry, i. 50, 58. There vas cantantium gesticulationes, me-

are also a Debate of the Carpenter's retricias vocum alternationes et

Tools (Hazlitt, i. 79) and an English infractiones, non sine cachinno risu-

version of a Latin Dtsputacio inter que intuetur, ut eos non ad orato-

Mariam et Crucem (R. Morris, rium sed ad theatrum, non ad oran-

Legends of the Holy Rood, 131); dum, sed ad spectandum aestimes

cf. Ten Brink, i. 259, 312. An A.-S. convenisse.' Cf.op.cit.ii. 17 ' Cum

version of the Debate between Body enim in tragediis vanisve carminibus

and Soul is in the Exeter Book quisquam iniuriatus ringitur, vel

(Grein, ii. 92). oppressus . . . si quis haec, vel cum

4.iElred(tn66), Speculum Cha- canuntur audiens, vel cernens si

CHAMBERS. I G

MINSTRELSY

is, however, a little suspicious, for an actual theatre in the
twelfth century is hardly thinkable, and with a learned eccle-
siastic one can never be sure that he is not drawing his
illustrations rather from his knowledge of classical literature
than from the real life around him. It is more conclusive,
perhaps, when fabliaux or contes speak of minstrels as ' doing '
fivre, or le cat, or le sot x ; or when it appears from con-
temporary accounts that at a performance in Savoy the
manners of England and Brittany were mimicked 2. In Pro-
vence ccmtrafazedor seems to have been a regular name for
a minstrel 3 ; and the facts that the minstrels wore masks
' with intent to deceive ' 4, and were forbidden to wear eccle-
siastical dresses 5, also point to something in the way of rudi-
mentary impersonation.

As for the distribution of r61es, all that can be said, so far
as the de'bats and dits dialogue's go, is, that while some of them

recitentur . . . moveatur' ; and
Johannes de Janua, s.v. persona
(cited Creizenach, i. 381) ' Item per-
sona dicitur histrio, repraesentator
comoediarum, qui diversis modis
personat diversas repraesentando
personas.' All these passages, like
the ninth-century responsio of arch-
bishop Leidradus referred to on
p. 36, may be suspected of learning
rather than actuality. As for the
epitaph of the mime Vitalis (Riese,
Anth. Lat. i. 2. 143 ; Baehrens,
P. L. M. iii. 245), sometimes quoted
in this connexion, it appears to be
classical and not mediaeval at all ;
cf. Teuffel-Schwabe, §§ 8. 11 ; 32. 6.
Probably this is also the case with
the lines De Mitno iam Sene in
Wright, Anecdota Literaria, 100,
where again ' theatra ' are men-
tioned.

1 Cf. p. 71. The mention of a
'Disare that played the sheppart'
at the English court in 1502 (Nico-
las, Pi ivy Purse Expenses of Eli-
zabeth of York) is too late to be of
importance here.

* Creizenach, i. 383, citing at
second-hand from fourteenth-cen-
tury accounts of a Savoy treasurer
4 rappresentando i costumi delle

compagnie inglesi e bretoni.'

3 Creizenach, i. 380.

* Thomas de Cabham mentions
the horribiles larvae of some
minstrels. A. Lecoy de la Marche,
La Chaire francaise (ed. 2, 1886),
444, quotes a sermon of Etienne
de Bourbon in MS. B. N. Lat.
I597°> f« 352 'a(l similitudinem
illorum ioculatorum qui ferunt
facies depictas quae dicuntur arti-
ficia gallice, cum quibus ludunt et
homines deludunt.' Cf. Liudprand,
iii. 15 (Pertz, iii. 310) 'histrionum
mimorumve more incedere, qui, ut
ad risum facile turbas illiciant,
variis sese depingunt coloribus.'
The monstra larvarum, however,
of various ecclesiastical prohibitions
I take to refer specifically to the
Feast of Fools (cf. ch. xiii).

5 Schack, Gesch. der dram. Litt.
und Kunst in Spanien, i. 30, quotes
a Carolingian capitulary, from Hei-
neccius, Capit. lib. v. c. 388 ' si quis
ex scenicis vestem sacerdotalem aut
monasticam vel mulieris religiosae
vel qualicunque ecclesiastico statu
similem indutus fuerit, corporali
poena subsistat et exilio tradatur.'
This prohibition is as old as the
Codex Theodosianus ; cf. p. 14.

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 83

may conceivably have been represented by more than one-
performer, none of them need necessarily have been so, and
some of them certainly were not. There is generally a narrative
introduction and often a sprinkling of narrative interspersed
amongst the dialogue. These parts may have been pronounced
by an auctor or by one of the interlocutors acting as anctor.
and some such device must have been occasionally necessitated
in the religious drama. But there is really no difficulty in
supposing the whole of these pieces to have been recited by
a single minstrel with appropriate changes of gesture and
intonation, and in The Harrowing of Hell, which begins ' A
strif will I tellen of,' this was clearly the case. The evidences
of impersonation given above are of course quite consistent
with such an arrangement ; or, for the matter of that, with
sheer monologue. The minstrel who recited Rutebeuf's Dit
dc I Erberie may readily be supposed to have got himself up
in the character of a quack 1.

But the possibilities of secular mediaeval drama are not
quite exhausted by the debats and dits dialogue's. For after
all, the written literature which the minstrels have left us
belongs almost entirely to those higher strata of their complex
fraternity which derived from the thoroughly undramatic
Teutonic scop. But if mediaeval farce there were, it would
not be here that we should look for it. It would belong to
the inheritance, not of the scop, but of the mimus. The Roman
mimus was essentially a player of farces ; that and little else.
It is of course open to any one to suppose that the mimus
went down in the seventh century playing farces, and that his
like appeared in the fifteenth century playing farces, and that
not a farce was played between. But is it not more probable
on the whole that, while occupying himself largely with other
matters, he preserved at least the rudiments of the art of
acting, and that when the appointed time came, the despised
and forgotten farce, under the stimulus of new conditions,
blossomed forth once more as a vital and effective form of
literature ? In the absence of data we are reduced to con-
jecture. But the mere absence of data itself does not render

1 (Euvresde Rutebeuf (ed. Kress- Julleville, Les Com. 24; Rtp. Com.
ner), 115; cf. Romania, xvi. 496; 407.

G a

84 MINSTRELSY

the conjecture untenable. For if such rudimentary, or, if you
please, degenerate farces as I have in mind, ever existed in
the Middle Ages, the chances were all against their literary
survival. They were assuredly very brief, very crude, often
improvised, and rarely, if ever, written down. They belonged
to an order of minstrels far below that which made literature1.
And one little bit of evidence which has not yet been brought
forward seems to point to the existence of something in the
way of a secular as well as a religious mediaeval drama. In
the well-known Wyclifite sermon against miracle plays, an
imaginary opponent of the preacher's argument is made to
say that after all it is ' lesse yvels that thei have thyre recrea-
ceon by pleyinge of myraclis than bi pleyinge of other japis';
and again that ' to pley in rebaudye ' is worse than ' to pley
in myriclis V Now, there is of course no necessary dramatic
connotation either in the word 'pley' or in the word 'japis,'
which, like ' bourde ' or ' gab ' is frequently used of any kind
of rowdy merriment, or of the lower types of minstrelsy in
general 3. But on the other hand the whole tone of the passage
seems to draw a very close parallel between the 'japis' and
the undeniably dramatic ' myriclis,' and to imply something
in the former a little beyond the mere recitation, even with
the help of impersonation, of a solitary mime.

Such rude farces or 'japis' as we are considering, if they

1 Creizenach, i. 386, further points term in a more technical sense,
out that a stage was not indispens- Activa Vita in Piers Plowman, xvi.
able to the Latin mimus, who habi- 207, is no minstrel, because ' Ich can
tually played before the curtain and not . . . japen ne jogelen.' No
probably with very little setting; doubt a 'jape' would include a
that the favourite situations of fabliau. It is equivalent etymo-
fifteenth-century French farce close- logically to 'gab,' and Bedier, 33,
ly resemble those of the mimes ; points out that the jongleurs use
and that the use of marionettes gabet, as well as bourde, trufe, and
is a proof of some knowledge of rise'e for a fabliau. — The use of
dramatic methods amongst the ' pleye ' as 'jest' may be illus-
minstrels. trated by Chaucer, Pardoner's Tale

2 On this treatise, cf. ch. xx. (C. T. 12712) 'My wit is greet,

3 A'japer' is often an idle talker, though that I bourde and pleye.' —
like a 'jangler' which is clearly The 'japis ' of the Tretise are pro-
sometimes confused with a 'jon- bably the ' knakkes ' of the passage
gleur'; cf. Chaucer, Parson's Tale, on 'japeris' in Parson's Tale, 651
89 ' He is a japere and a gabber ' right so conforten the vileyns
and no verray repentant that eft- wordes and knakkes of japeris hem
soone dooth thing for which hym that travaillen in the service of the
oghte repente.' Langland uses the devel.'

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 85

formed part of the travelling equipment of the humbler mimes,
could only get into literature by an accident ; in the event, that
is to say, of some minstrel of a higher class taking it into his
head to experiment in the form or to adapt it to the purposes
of his own art. And this is precisely what appears to have
happened. A very natural use of the farce would be in the
parade or preliminary patter, merely about himself and his
proficiency, which at all times has served the itinerant enter-
tainer as a means whereby to attract his audiences. And just
as the very similar boniment or patter of the mountebank
charlatan at a fair became the model for Rutebeuf's Dit de
V Erberie, so the parade may be traced as the underlying motive
of other dits ox fabliaux. The Dens Bordeors Ribanz is itself
little other than a glorified parade, and another, very slightly
disguised, may be found in the discomfiture of the king by
the characteristic repartees of the wandering minstrel in Le
Roi dAngleterre et le Jongleur cfEly1. The parade, also,
seems to be the origin of a certain familiar type of dramatic
prologue in which the author or the presenters of a play
appear in their own persons. The earliest example of this is
perhaps that enigmatic Terentius et Dclusor piece which some
have thought to point to a representation of Terence some-
where in the dark ages between the seventh and the eleventh
century 2. And there is a later one in the Jen du Pelerin
which was written about 1288 to precede Adan de la Hale's
Jen de Robin et Marion.

The renascence of farce in the fifteenth century will call
for consideration in a later chapter. It is possible that, as is
here suggested, that renascence was but the coming to light
again of an earth-bourne of dramatic tradition that had

1 Montaiglon-Raynaud, ii. 243. with which the jongleur meets the

Ci.Hisi.Litt.yxm.. 103; Jusserand, king's questions. Thus, in La Riote

Lit. Hist. i. 442. A shorter prose du Monde : ' Dont ies tu?— Je suis

form of the story is found in La de no vile. — U est te vile ? — Entor

Riote du Monde (ed. Fr. Michel, le moustier. — U est li moustiers ? —

1834), a popular face'tie of which En l'atre. — U est li atres ?— Sor

both French and Anglo-Norman terre.— U siet cele terre? — Sor

versions exist ; cf. Paris, Litt. fr. l'iaue.— Comment apiel-on l'iaue ?

153. And a Latin form, De Mtmo —On ne l'apiele nient ; ele vient

et Rege Francorum is in Wright, bien sans apieler.'
Latin Stories, No. 1 37. The point 2 Cf. Appendix V.

consists in the quibbling replies

86 MINSTRELSY

worked its way beneath the ground ever since the theatres
of the Empire fell. In any case, rare documents of earlier
date survive to show that it was at least no absolutely sudden
and unprecedented thing. The jcux of Adan de la Hale,
indeed, are somewhat irrelevant here. They were not farces,
and will fall to be dealt with in the discussion of the popular
fetes from which they derive their origin1. But the French
farce of Lc Gar con ct FAveugle, ascribed to the second half of
the thirteenth century, is over a hundred years older than any
of its extant successors 2. And even more interesting to us,
because it is of English provenance and in the English tongue,
is a fragment found in an early fourteenth-century manuscript
of a dramatic version of the popular mediaeval tale of Dame
Siriz ::. This bears the heading Hie incipit intcrludium de
Clerico ct Puella. But the significance of this fateful word
intcrludium must be left for study at a later period, when the
history of the secular drama is resumed from the point at
which it must now be dropped.

1 Cf. ch. viii. for the earlier non-dramatic versions

2 Ed. P. Meyer, in Jahrbuch fiir in Latin, French, and English of
romanische und englischc Lit era- the story are given by Jusserand,
tur, vi. 163. The piece was pro- Lit. Hist. i. 447. A Cornish dra-
bably written in Flanders, between matic fragment of the fourteenth
1266 and 1290. Cf. Creizenach, i. century is printed in the Athenceum
390. for Dec. i, 1877, and Revue celtique,

* See Appendix U. References iv. 259 ; cf. Creizenach, i. 401.

BOOK II

FOLK DRAMA

Stultorum infinitus est numerus.

ECCLESIASTES.

CHAPTER V
THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK

[Bibliographical Note. — The conversion of heathen England is described
in the Ecclesiastical History of Bede (C. Plummer, Baedae Opera Hislorica,
1896). Stress is laid on the imperfect character of the process by
L. Knappert, Le Christianisme et le Paganisme dans I'Histoire eccUsias-
tique de Bede le Vendrable (in Revue de I 'Histoire des Religions, 1897,
vol. xxxv). A similar study for Gaul is E. Vacandard, L'Idolatrie dans
la Gaule (in Revite des Questions historiques, 1899, vol. lxv). Witness
is borne to the continued presence of pre-Christian elements in the folk-
civilization of western Europe both by the general results of folk-lore
research and by the ecclesiastical documents of the early Middle Ages.
Of these the most important in this respect are — (1) the Decrees of
Councils, collected generally in P. Labbe and G. Cossart, Sacrosancta
Concilia (1671-2), and J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et
amplissima Collectio (1759-98), and for England in particular in
D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (1737) and A. W.
Haddan and W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating
to Great Britain and Ireland (1869-78). An interesting series of
extracts is given by G. Grober, Zur Volkskunde aus Concilbeschliissen
und Capitularien (1894) : — (2) the Penitentials, or catalogues of sins and
their penalties drawn up for the guidance of confessors. The most
important English example is the Penitential of Theodore (668-90),
on which the Penitentials of Bede and of Egbert are based. Authentic
texts are given by Haddan and Stubbs, vol. iii, and, with others of con-
tinental origin, in F. W. H. Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen der
abendlandischen Kirche (1851), and H. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbiicher und
die Bussdisciplin der Kirche (1883). The most interesting for its heathen
survivals is the eleventh-century Collectio Decretorum of Burchardus
of Worms (Migne, P. L. cxl, extracts in J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology,
iv. 1740): — (3) Homilies or Sermons, such as the Sermo ascribed to the
seventh-century St. Eligius (P. L. Ixxxvii. 524, transl. Grimm, iv. 1737),
and the eighth-century Frankish pseudo-Augustinian Homilia de Sacri-
legiis (ed. C. P. Caspari, 1886): — (4) the Vitae of the apostles of the
West, St. Boniface, St. Columban, St. Gall, and others. A critical edition
of these is looked for from M. Knappert. The Epistolae of Boniface are
in P. L. lxxxix. 593 : — (5) Miscellaneous Documents, including the sixth-
century De correctione Rusticorum of Bishop Martin of Braga in Spain
(ed. C. P. Caspari, 1883) and the so-called Indiculus Superstitionum et
Paganiarum (ed. H. A. Saupe, 1891), a list of heathen customs probably
drawn up in eighth-century Saxony. — The view of primitive religion taken
in this book is largely, although not altogether in detail, that of J. G.
Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890, 2nd ed. 1900), which itself owes much
to E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (1871); W. Robertson Smith,
Religion of the Semites (2nd ed. 1894) ; W. Mannhardt, Der Baumkultus
der Germanen (1875) ; Antike Wald- und Feldkulte (1875-7). A more

90 FOLK DRAMA

systematic work on similar lines is F. B. Jevons, An Introduction to the
History of Religion (1896) : and amongst many others may be mentioned
A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion (1887, 2nd ed. 1899), the conclusions
of which are somewhat modified in the same writer's The Making of
Religion (1898); Grant Allen, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897) ;
E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus (1894-6); J. Rhys, The Origin
and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom (1888).
The last of these deals especially with Keltic data, which may be further
studied in H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, Le Cycle mythologique irlaudais
el la Mythologie celtique (1884), together with the chapter on La Religion
in the same writer's La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de V Efiofie'e
homerique (1899) and A. Bertrand, La Religion des Gaulois (1897).
Teutonic religion has been more completely investigated. Recent works
of authority are E. H. Meyer, Gertnanische Mythologie (1891) ; W. Golther,
Handbuch dergermanischen Mythologie (1895 ) ; and the article by E. Mogk
on Mythologie in H. Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, vol. iii
(2nded. 1897). Thecollection of material inj. Grimm's Teutonic Mythology
(transl. J. S. Stallybrass, 1880-8) is still of the greatest value. The general
facts of early German civilization are given by F. B. Gummere, Germanic
Origins (1892), and for the Aryan-speaking peoples in general by
O. Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples (transl. F. B.
Jevons, 1890), and Reallexicon der indo-germanischen Altertumskunde
(1901). In dealing with the primitive calendar I have mainly, but not wholly,
followed the valuable researches of A. Tilie, Deutsche Weihnacht (1893)
and Yule and Christmas (1899), a scholar the loss of whom to this country
is one of the lamentable results of the recent war.]

Minstrelsy was an institution of the folk, no less than of
) the court and the bourgeoisie. At many a village festival, one
may be sure, the taberers and buffoons played their conspicuous
part, ravishing the souls of Dorcas and Mopsa with merry and
doleful ballads, and tumbling through their amazing programme
of monkey tricks before the ring of wide-mouthed rustics on
the green. Yet the soul and centre of such revels always lay,

/ not in these alien professional spectacula, but in other entertain-
ments, home-grown and racy of the soil, wherein the peasants
shared, not as onlookers only, but as performers, even as
their fathers and mothers, from immemorial antiquity, had
done before them. A full consideration of the village ludi
is important to the scheme of the present book for more than
one reason. They shared with the ludi of the minstrels the

/ hostility of the Church. They bear witness, at point after
point, to the deep-lying dramatic instincts of the folk. And
their substantial contribution to mediaeval and Renaissance
drama and dramatic spectacle is greater than has been fully
recognized.

Historically, the ludi of the folk come into prominence with
the attacks made upon them by the reforming ecclesiastics of

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK

the thirteenth century and in particular by Robert Grosseteste,
bishop of Lincoln *. Between 1 236 and 1 244 Grosseteste issued
a series of disciplinary pronouncements, in which he condemned
many customs prevalent in his diocese. Amongst these are
included miracle plays, 'scotales' or drinking-bouts, 'ram-
raisings ' and other contests of athletic prowess, together with
ceremonies known respectively as the festum stultoruvi and
the Inductio Mali sive Autumni2. Very similar are the
prohibitions contained in the Constitutions (1240) of Walter
de Chanteloup, bishop of Worcester 3. These particularly
specify the Indus de Regc et Regina, a term which may be
taken as generally applicable to the typical English folk-
festival, of which the Inductio Mali sive Autumni, the
' May-game ' and ' mell-supper,' mentioned by Grosseteste,
are varieties 4. Both this Indus, in its various forms, and the

1 Stephens-Hunt, ii. 301 ; F. S.
Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 126.
The disciplinary attack seems
to have begun with Grosseteste's
predecessor, Hugh de Wells, in
1230 (Wilkins, i. 627), but he, like
Roger West- ham, bishop of Coventry
and Lichfield, in 1252 {Annates Mo-
nastiei, R. S. i. 296), merely con-
demns tudi, a term which may mean
folk-festivals or minstrelsy, or both.
A similar ambiguity attaches to the
obligation of the anchoresses of
Tarrant Keyneston not to look on
at a Indus {ftleowwe) in the church-
yard (Ancren Riivle, C. S. 318).

1 In 1236 Grosseteste wrote to his
archdeacons forbidding 'arictum
super ligna et rotas elevationes,
cacterosque ludos consimiles, in quo
decertatur pro bravio ; cum huius-
modi ludorum tarn actores quam
spectatores, sicut evidenter demon-
strat Isidorus, immolant daemoni-
bus, . . . et cum etiam huiusmodi ludi
frequenter dant occasiones irae, odii,
pugnae, et homicidii.' His Consti-
tutiones of 1238 say ' Praecipimus
etiam ut in singulis ecclesiis denun-
cietur solenniter ne quisquam levet
arietes super rotas, vel alios ludos
statuat, in quibus decertatur pro
bravio: nee huiusmodi ludis quis-
quam intersit, &c* About 1244 he

wrote again to the archdeacons :
' Faciunt etiam, ut audivimus, clerici
ludos quos vocant miracula : et
alios ludos quos vocant Inductioncm
Maii sive Autumni ; et laici scotales
. . . miracula etiam et ludos supra
nominatos et scotales, quod est in
vestra potestate facili, omnino exter-
minetis' (Luard, Letters of Robert
Grosseteste (R. S.) Efp. xxii, lii, cvii,
pp. 74, 162, 317). For his condem-
nations of the Feast of Fools cf. ch.
xiv.

3 Const. Walt, de Catitilupo
(Wilkins, i. 673) 'prohibemus cleri-
cis . . . nee sustineant ludos lien
de Rege et Regina, nee arietas
levari, nee palaestras publicas fieri,
nee gildales inhonestas.' The clergy
must also abstain and dissuade the
laity from ' compotationibus quae
vocantur scottales ' (Wilkins, i.
672). On ' ram-raisings,' &C, cf.
ch. vii ; on ' gildales ' and ' scotales '
ch. viii.

4 Surely the reference is to the
mock kings and queens of the village
festivals, and not, as Guy, 521 ;
J usserand, /./'//. Hist. i. 444, su^gi -4,
to the question-and-anb\\er game of
Le Roi qui ne ment described in
Jean de Condi's Sentier Batu
(Montaiglon-Raynaud, iii. 248),
although this is called playing 'as

FOLK DRAMA

less strictly popular festum stultorum, will find ample illus-
tration in the sequel. Waiter de Chanteloup also lays stress
upon an aggravation of the ludi inhonesti by the perform-
ance of them in churchyards and other holy places, and on
Sundays or the vigils and days of saints l.

The decrees of the two bishops already cited do not stand
alone. About 1 250 the University of Oxford found it necessary
to forbid the routs of masked and garlanded students in the
churches and open places of the city 2. These appear to have
been held in connexion with the feasts of the ' nations ' into
which a mediaeval university was divided. Articles of visitation
drawn up in connexion with the provisions of Oxford in 1253
made inquiry as to several of the obnoxious ludi and as to
the measures adopted to check them throughout the country 3.
Prohibitions are upon record by the synod of Exeter in 1287 4,
and during the next century by the synod of York in 1367 5,
and by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, in
1 384 s; while the denunciations of the rulers of the church

rois et as reines ' in Adan de la
Hale's Robin et Marion (ed. Mon-
merque-Michel, 121) and elsewhere
(cf. Guy, 222), and possibly grew
out of the festival custom. Yet
another game of King and Queen,
of the practical joke order, is de-
scribed as played at Golspie by
Nicholson, 119.

1 Wilkins, i. 666.

2 Anstey, Munimenta Academica
(R. S.), i. 18 ' ne quis choreas cum
larvis seu strepitu aliquo in ecclesiis
vel plateis ducat, vel sertatus, vel
coronatus corona ex foliis arborum,
vel florum vel aliunde composita
alicubi incedat . . . prohibemus.'

3 Inquisitioties . . . de vita et con-
versatione clericorum et laicorum
mAnnales de Burton {Ann.Monast.
R. S. i. 307) 'an aliqui laici mercata,
vel ludos, seu placita peculiaria fieri
faciant in locis sacris, et an haec
fuerint prohibita ex parte episcopi
. . . An aliqui laici elevaverint
arietes, vel fieri faciant schothales,
vel decertaverint de praeeundo cum
vexillis in visitatione matricis eccle-
siae.'

4 Wilkins, ii. 129 'c. 13 ... Ne
quisquam luctas, choreas, vel alios
ludos inhonestos in coemeteriis
exercere praesumat ; praecipue in
vigiliis et festis sanctorum, cum
•huiusmodi ludos theatrales et ludi-
briorium spectacula introductos
per quos ecclesiarum coinquinatur
honestas, sacri ordines detestan-
tur.'

5 Wilkins, iii. 68 'c. 2 . . . nee
in ipsis [locis sacris] fiant lucta-
tiones, sagittationes, vel ludi.' A
special caution is given against ludi
1 in sanctorum vigiliis ' and ' in exe-
quiis defunctorum.'

6 T. F. Kirby, Wykehani's Regis-
ter (Hampshire Record Soc), ii.
410, forbids ' ad pilas ludere, iacta-
ciones lapidum facere . . . coreas
facere dissolutas, et interdum canere
cantilenas, ludibriorum spectacula
facere, saltaciones et alios ludos
inhonestos frequentare, ac multas
alias insolencias perpetrare, ex qui-
bus cimeterii huiusmodi execracio
seu pollucio frequencius verisimiliter
formidetur.'

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 93

find an unofficial echo in that handbook of ecclesiastical
morality. Robert Mannyng of Brunne's Handlyng Synne l.
There is, however, reason to suppose that the attitude thus
taken up hardly represents that of the average ecclesiastical
authority, still less that of the average parish priest, towards
the ludi in question. The condemnatory decrees should
probably be looked upon as the individual pronouncements
of men of austere or reforming temper against customs which
the laxer discipline of their fellows failed to touch ; perhaps
it should rather be said, which the wiser discipline of their
fellows found it better to regulate than to ban. At any rate
there is evidence to show that the village ludi, as distinct
from the spectacula of the minstrels, were accepted, and even
to some extent directed, by the Church. They became part
of the parochial organization, and were conducted through the
parochial machinery. Doubtless this was the course of practical
wisdom. But the moralist would find it difficult to deny that
Robert Grosseteste and Walter de Chanteloup had, after all,
some reason on their side. On the one hand they could point
to the ethical lapses of which the ludi were undoubtedly the
cause — the drunkenness, the quarrels, the wantonings, by which
they were disgraced 2. And on the other they could — if they

1 Handlyng Synne (ed. Furnivall), Or entyrludes, or syngynge,

p. 148, 1. 4684 : Or tabure bete, or of>er pypynge,

' Daunces, karols, somour games, Alle swyche byng forbodyn es,

Of many swych come many Whyle be prest stondeb at

shames.' messe ' ;

This poem is a free adaptation where the Manuel de Pe"chd has

(ti303) of the thirteenth-century ' Karoles ne lutes nul deit fere,

Anglo-Norman Manuel de Pich<f, En seint eglise qe me veut

which is probably by William de crere ;

Wadington, but has been ascribed Car en cymiter neis karoler

to Bishop Grosseteste himself. The Est outrage grant, ou luter :

corresponding lines in this are Souent lur est mes auenu

' Muses et tieles musardries, Qe la fet tel maner de iu ;

Trippes, dances, et teles folies.' Qe grant peche est, desturber

Cf. also Handlyng Synne, p. 278, Le prestre quant deit celebrer.'

1, g989 : 2 The Puritan Fetherston, in his

' Karolles, wrastlynges, or somour Dialogue agaynst light, lewde, and

games, lascivious Dancing (1583), sign. D.

Who so euer haunteb any swyche 7, says that he has ' hearde of tenne

shames, maidens which went to set May, and

Yy cherche, ober yn cherche- nine of them came home with childe.'

jerde, Stubbes, i. 149, has a very similar

Of sacrylage he may be a ferde ; observation. Cf. the adventures of

94 FOLK DRAMA

were historically minded — recall the origin of the objectionable
rites in some of those obscure survivals of heathenism in the
rustic blood, which half a dozen centuries of Christianity had
failed to purge1. For if the comparative study of religions
proves anything it is, that the traditional beliefs and customs
of the mediaeval or modern peasant are in nine cases out of
ten but the detritus of heathen mythology and heathen worship,
enduring with but little external change in the shadow of an
hostile creed. This is notably true of the village festivals
and their ludi. Their full significance only appears when they
are regarded as fragments of forgotten cults, the naive cults
addressed by a primitive folk to the beneficent deities of field
and wood and river, or the shadowy populace of its own
dreams. Not that when even the mediaeval peasant set up
his Maypole at the approach of summer or drove his cattle
through the bonfire on Midsummer eve, the real character of
his act was at all explicit in his consciousness. To him, as to
his descendant of to-day, the festival was at once a practice
sanctioned by tradition and the rare amusement of a strenuous
life : it was not, save perhaps in some unplumbed recesses of
his being, anything more definitely sacred. At most it was
held to be ' for luck,' and in some vague general way, to the
interest of a fruitful year in field and fold. The scientific
anthropologist, however, from his very different point of view,
cannot regard the conversion to Christianity as a complete
solution of continuity in the spiritual and social life of western
Europe. This conversion, indeed, was clearly a much slower
and-more incomplete process than the ecclesiastical chroniclers
quite plainly state. It was so even on the shores of the
Mediterranean. But there the triumph of Christianity began
from below. Long before the edict of Milan, the new religion,
in spite of persecutions, had got its firm hold upon the masses
of the great cities of the Empire. And when, less than a

Dr. Fitzpiers and Suke Damson on (560-636), Etymologiarwn,-x.v\\\.2j ,

Midsummer Eve in Thomas Hardy's De ludis circensibus {P. L. lxxxii.

novel, The IVoodlanders, ch. xx. 653). This, of course, refers directly

1 Grosseteste, in 1236, quotes to the religious associations of

'Isidorus' as to the pagan origin Roman rather than Celto-Teutonic

of ' ludi, in quo decertatur de bravio' ludi.
The reference is to Isidore of Seville

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 95

century later, Theodosius made the public profession of any
other faith a crime, he was but formally acknowledging
a chose juge'e. But even in these lands of the first ardour the
old beliefs and, above all, the old rituals died hard. Lingering
unacknowledged in the country, the pagan, districts, they
passed silently into the dim realm of folk-lore. How could
this but be more so when Christianity came with the mission-
aries of Rome or of Iona to the peoples of the West ? For
with them conversion was hardly a spontaneous, an individual
thing. As a rule, the baptism of the king was the starting-
point and motive for that of his followers : and the bulk of
the people adopted wonderingly an alien cult in an alien
tongue imposed upon them by the will of their rulers.
Such a Christianity could at best be only nominal. Ancient
beliefs are not so easily surrendered : nor are habits and
instincts, deep-rooted in the lives of a folk, thus lightly laid
down for ever, at the word of a king. The churches of the
West had, therefore, to dispose somehow of a vast body of
practical heathenism surviving in all essentials beneath a new
faith which was but skin-deep. The conflict which followed
is faintly adumbrated in the pages of Bede : something more
may be guessed of its fortunes by a comparison of the
customs and superstitions recorded in early documents of
church discipline with those which, after all, the peasantry
long retained, or even now retain.

Two letters of Gregory the Great, written at the time of the
mission of St. Augustine, are a key to the methods adopted
by the apostles of the West. In June 601, writing to Ethelbert
of Kent by the hands of abbot Mellitus, Gregory bade the
new convert show zeal in suppressing the worship of idols, and
throwing down their fanes1. Having written thus, the pope
changed his mind. Before Mellitus could reach England, he
received a letter instructing him to expound to Augustine
a new policy. ' Do not, after all,' wrote Gregory, 'pull down
the fanes. Destroy the idols ; purify the buildings with holy
water ; set relics there ; and let them become temples of the
true God. So the people will have no need to change their

1 Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 30 ' idolorum cultus insequere, fanorum aedificia
everate.'

96 FOLK DRAMA

places of concourse, and where of old they were wont to
sacrifice cattle to demons, thither let them continue to resort
on the day of the saint to whom the church is dedicated, and
slay their beasts no longer as a sacrifice, but for a social meal
in honour of Him whom they now worship V There can be
little doubt that the conversion of England proceeded in the
main on the lines thus laid down by Gregory. Tradition has
it that the church of Saint Pancras outside the walls of Canter-
bury stands on the site of a fane at which Ethelbert himself
once worshipped 2 ; and that in London St. Paul's replaced
a temple and grove of Diana, by whom the equivalent
Teutonic wood-goddess, Freyja, is doubtless intended3.
Gregory's directions were, perhaps, not always carried out
quite so literally as this. When, for instance, the priest Coifi,
on horseback and sword in hand, led the onslaught against
the gods of Northumbria, he bade his followers set fire to the
fane and to all the hedges that girt it round 4. On the other
hand, Reduald, king of East Anglia, must have kept his fane
standing, and indeed he carried the policy of amalgamation

l Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 30 ; Haddan- nitatem celebrent ; nee diabolo iam

Stubbs, iii. 37 ' Dicite [Augustino], animalia immolent, sed ad laudem

quid diu mecum de causa Anglorum Dei in esum suum animalia occidant,

cogitans tractavi : videlicet quia et donatori omnium de satietate sua

fana idolorum destrui in eadem gratias referant : ut dum eis aliqua

gente minime debeant ; sed ipsa exterius gaudia reservantur, ad inte-

quae in illis sunt idola destruantur, riora gaudia consentire facilius va-

aqua benedicta fiat, in eisdem fanis leant. Nam duris mentibus simul

aspergatur, altaria construantur, omnia abscindere impossibile esse

reliquiae ponantur : quia si fana non dubium est, quia et is qui

eadem bene constructa sunt, ne- summum locum ascendere nititur

cesse est ut a cultu daemonum in gradibus vel passibus non autem

obsequium veri Dei debeant com- saltibus elevatur '. . .

mutari, ut dum gens ipsa eadem 2 Stanley, Memorials of Canter-

fana sua non videt destrui, de corde bury, 37.

errorem deponat, et Deum verum 3 H. B. Wheatley, London, Past

cognoscens ac adorans, ad loca, and Present, iii. 39 ; Donne, Poems

quae consuevit, familiarius con- (Muses' Library), ii. 23.

currat. Et quia boves solent in " Bede, ii. 13 ' iussit sociis de-

sacrificio daemonum multos occi- struere ac succendere fanum cum

dere, debet eis etiam hac de re omnibus septis suis.' In Essex in

aliqua solemnitas immutari : ut die a time of plague and famine (664),

dedicationis, vel natalitii sanctorum Sigheri and his people ' coeperunt

martyrum quorum illic reliquiae fana, quae derelicta sunt, restaurare,

ponuntur, tabernacula sibi circa eas- et adorare simulacra.' Bp. Jaruman

dem ecclesias quae ex fanis com- induced them to reopen the churches,

mutatae sunt, de ramis arborum 'relictis sive destructis fanis aris-

faciant,et religiosis conviviis sollem- que ' (Bede, iii. 30).

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 97

further than its author intended, for he wavered faint-heartedly
between the old religion and the new, and maintained in one
building an altare for Christian worship and an aritla for
sacrifice to demons 1. Speaking generally, it would seem to
have been the endeavour of the Christian missionaries to effect
the change of creed with as little dislocation of popular senti-
ment as possible. If they could extirpate the essentials, or
what they considered as the essentials, of heathenism, they
were willing enough to leave the accidentals to be worn away
by the slow process of time. They did not, probably, quite
realize how long it would take. And what happened in
England, happened also, no doubt, on the continent, save
perhaps in such districts as Saxony, where Christianity was
introduced vi et armts, and therefore in a more wholesale, if
not in the end a more effectual fashion 2.

The measure of surviving heathenism under Christianity
must have varied considerably from district to district. Much
would depend on the natural temper of the converts, on the
tact of the clergy and on the influence they were able to
secure. Roughly speaking, the old worships left their trace
upon the new society in two ways. Certain central practices,
the deliberate invocation of the discarded gods, the deliberate
acknowledgement of their divinity by sacrifice, were bound to
be altogether proscribed 3. And these, if they did not precisely

1 Bede, ii. 15. So too in eighth- Poesie und Prosa aus dent 8.-12.
century Germany there were priests Jahrhundert, 1892, No. Ii) speci-
who were equally ready to sacrifice fically renounces ' Thuner ende
to Wuotan and to administer the Uuoden ende Saxnote ende allum
sacrament of baptism (Gummere, them unholdum the' hira genotas
342). See also Grimm, i. 7, and sint.' Anglo-Saxon laws and council
the letter of Gregory the Great to decrees contain frequent references
queen Brunichildis in M. G. H. to sacrifices and other lingering
Epist. ii. I. 7 'pervenit ad nos, remnants of heathenism. Cf. Court-
quod multi Christianorum et ad cils of Pincanhale and Cealcythe
ecclesias occurrant, et a culturis (787), c. 19 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii.
daemonum non abscedant.' 458) ' si quid ex ritu paganorum

2 Willibald (Gesch.-Schreiber der remansit, avellatur, contemnatur,
deutschen Vorzeit, 27) relates that abiiciatur. ' Council of Gratlea
in Germany, when Boniface felled (928), c. 3 (Vvilkins, i. 205) 'dixi-
the sacred oak of Thor(robur Iovis) mus . . . de sacrifices barbaris . . .
he built the wood into a church. si quis aliquem occiderit . . . ut

s A Saxon formula abrenuntia- vitam suam perdat.' Council of
tionis of the ninth century (Mullen- London (1075) (Vvilkins, i. 363) ' ne
hoff-Scherer, Denkmaler deutscher offa mortuorum animalium, quasi

CHAMBERS. I J{

FOLK DRAMA

vanish, at least went underground, coming to light only as
shameful secrets of the confessional x or the witch-trial 2, or
when the dominant faith received a rude shock in times of
especial distress, famine or pestilence 3. Others again were
absorbed into the scheme of Christianity itself. Many of the
protective functions, for instance, of the old pantheon were
taken over bodily by the Virgin Mary, by St. John, St. Michael,
St. Martin, St. Nicholas, and other personages of the new
dispensation 4. And in particular, as we have seen shadowed
forth in Pope Gregory's policy, the festal customs of heathenism,
purified so far as might be, received a generous amount of
toleration. The chief thing required was that the outward
and visible signs of the connexion with the hostile religion

pro vitanda animalium peste, ali-
cubi suspendantur ; nee sortes, vel
aruspicia, seu divinationes, vel ali-
qua huiusmodi opera diaboli ab
aliquo exerceantur.' Also Leges of
Wihtred of Kent (696), c. 12
(Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 235), and other
A.-S. laws quoted by Kemble, i.

523-

1 Penitential of Theodore (Had-
dan-Stubbs, iii. 189), i. 15, de Cnl-
tura Idolorum ; Penitential of Eg-
bert (H.-S. iii. 424), 8, de Auguriis
•vel Divinationibus.

2 Pearson, ii. 1 (Essay on Wo-
man as Witch) ; cf. A.-S. spells in
Kemble, i. 528, and Cockayne,
Leechdoms (R. S.), iii. 35, 55. Early
and mediaeval Christianity did not
deny the existence of the heathen
gods, but treated them as evil
spirits, demons.

3 An Essex case of 664 has just
been quoted. Kemble, i. 358, gives
two later ones from the Chronicle
of Lanercost. In 1268 ' cum hoc
anno in Laodonia pestis grassaretur
in pecudes armenti, quam vocant
usitate Lungessouth, quidam bestia-
les, habitu claustrales non animo,
docebant idiotas patriae ignem con-
frictione de lignis educere et simula-
chrum Priapi statuere, et per haec
bestiis succurrere.' In 1282 ' sacer-
dos parochialis, nomine Johannes,
Priapi prophana parans, congrega-
tis ex villa puellulis, cogebat ejs,

choreis factis, Libero patri circuire.'
By Priapus-Liber is probably
meant Freyr, the only Teutonic
god known to have had Priapic
characteristics (Adam of Bremen,
Gesta Hammaburge?isis Eccles.
Pontif. iv. 26 in M. G. H. Script.
vii. 267).

* Grimm, i. 5, 11, 64, 174; iii.
xxxiv-xlv ; Keary, 90 ; Pearson, ii.
16, 32, 42, 243, 285, 350. The Vir-
gin Mary succeeds to the place of
the old Teutonic goddess of fertility,
Freyja, Nerthus. So elsewhere
does St. Walpurg. The toasts or
minni drunk to Odin and Freyja
are transferred to St. John and St.
Gertrude. The travels of Odin and
Loki become the travels of Christ
and St. Peter. Many examples of
the adaptation of pre-existing cus-
toms to Christianity will be found
in the course of this book. A capi-
tulary of Karlmann, drawn up in
742 after the synod of Ratisbon
held by Boniface in Germany,
speaks of 'hostias immolatitias,quas
stulti homines iuxta ecclesias ritu
pagano faciunt sub nomine sancto-
rum martyrum vel confessorum '
(Boretius, Capitularia Reg. Franc.
i. 24 in M. G. H. ; Mansi, xii. 367).
At Kirkcudbright in the twelfth
century bulls were killed ' as an
alms and oblation to St. Cuthbert
(F. L. x. 353).

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 99

should be abandoned. Nor was this such a difficult matter.
Cult, the sum of what man feels it obligatory upon him to do
in virtue of his relation to the unseen powers, is notoriously
a more enduring thing than belief, the speculative, or mythology,
the imaginative statement of those relations. And it was of
the customs themselves that the people were tenacious, not
of the meaning, so far as there was still a meaning, attached
to them, or of the names which their priests had been wont to
invoke. Leave them but their familiar revels, and the ritual
so indissolubly bound up with their hopes of fertility for their
flocks and crops, they would not stick upon the explicit
consciousness that they drank or danced in the might of
Eostre or of Freyr. And in time, as the Christian inter-
pretation of life became an everyday thing, it passed out of
sight that the customs had been ritual at all. At the most
a general sense ,of their ' lucky ' influence survived. But to
stop doing them ; that was not likely to suggest itself to the
rustic mind. And so the church and the open space around
the church continued to be, what the temple and the temple
precinct had been, the centre, both secular and religious, of the
village life. From the Christian point of view, the arrange-
ment had its obvious advantages. It had also this disadvantage,
that so far as obnoxious elements still clung to the festivals,
so far as the darker practices of heathenism still lingered, it
was precisely the most sacred spot that they defiled. Were
incantations and spells still muttered secretly for the good
will of the deposed divinities? it was the churchyard that
was sure to be selected as the nocturnal scene of the unhallowed
ceremony. Were the clergy unable to cleanse the yearly
wake of wanton dance and song ? it was the church itself,
by Gregory's own decree, that became the focus of the
riot.

The partial survival of the village ceremonies under Christi-
anity will appear less surprising when it is borne in mind that
the heathenism which Christianity combated was itself only
the final term of a long process of evolution. The worshippers
of the Keltic or Teutonic deities already practised a traditional
ritual, probably without any very clear conception of the
rationale on which some at least of the acts which they per-
il a

100 FOLK DRAMA

formed were based. These acts had their origin far back in
the history of the religious consciousness ; and it must not be
supposed, because modern scholarship, with its comparative
methods, is able to some extent to reconstruct the mental
conditions out of which they arose, that these conditions were
still wholly operative in the sixth, any more than in the
thirteenth or the twentieth century. Side by- side with
customs which had still their definite and intelligible signi-
ficance, religious conservatism had certainly preserved others
of a very primitive type, some of which survived as mere
fossils, while others had undergone that transformation of
intention, that pouring of new wine into old bottles, which is
one of the most familiar features in the history of institutions.
The heathenism of western Europe must be regarded, there-
fore, as a group of religious practices originating in very
different strata of civilization, and only fused together in the
continuity of tradition. Its permanence lay in the law of
association through which a piece of ritual originally devised
by the folk to secure their practical well-being remained, even
after the initial meaning grew obscure, irrevocably bound up
with their expectations of that well-being. Its interest to the
student is that of a development, rather than that of a system.
Only the briefest outline of the direction taken by this
development can be here indicated. But it must first be
pointed out that, whether from a common derivation, or
through a similar intellectual structure reacting upon similar
conditions of life, it seems, at least up to the point of emer-
gence of the fully formed village cult, to have proceeded on
uniform lines, not only amongst the Teutonic and Keltic tribes
who inhabited western and northern Europe and these islands,
but also amongst all the Aryan-speaking peoples. In par-
ticular, although the Teutonic and the Keltic priests and
bards elaborated, probably in comparatively late stages of
their history, very different god-names and very different
mythologies, yet these are but the superstructure of religion ;
and it is possible to infer, both from the results of folk-lore
and from the more scanty documentary evidence, a substantial
identity throughout the whole Kelto-Teutonic group, of the
underlying institutions of ritual and of the fundamental

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK

101

theological conceptions *. I am aware that it is no longer
permissible to sum up all the facts of European civilization in
an Aryan formula. Ethnology has satisfactorily established
the existence on the continent of at least two important racial
strains besides that of the blonde invader from Latham-land2.
But I do not think that any of the attempts hitherto made to
distinguish Aryan from pre-Aryan elements in folk-lore have
met with any measure of success 3. Nor is it quite clear that
any such distinction need have been implied by the difference
of blood. Archaeologists speak of a remarkable uniformity
of material culture throughout the whole of Europe during
the neolithic period ; and there appears to be no special
reason why this uniformity may not have extended to the
comparatively simple notions which man was led to form of
the not-man by his early contacts with his environment. In
any case the social amalgamation of Aryan and pre-Aryan

1 In the present state of Gaulish
and still more of Irish studies, only
a glimmering of possible equations
between Teutonic and Keltic gods
is apparent.

2 Recent ethnological research is
summed up in G. Vacher de La-
pouge, L'Aryen (1899); W. Z.
Ripley, The Races oj 'Europe (1900) ;
A. H. Keane, Ethnology (1896) ;
Man, Past and Present (1899);
J. Deniker, The Races of Man
(1900) ; G. Sergi, The Mediterra-
nean Race (1901). The three ra-
cial types that, in many pure and
hybrid forms, mainly compose the
population of Europe may be distin-
guished as (1) Homo Europaeus,
the tall blonde long-headed (doli-
chocephalic) race of north Europe,
(including Teutons and red-haired
4 Kelts '), to which the Aryan speech
seems primarily to have belonged ;
(2) Homo alpinus, the medium
coloured and sized brachycephalic
(round-headed) race of central Eu-
rope ; (3) Homo meridionalis (La-
pouge) or mediterranensis (Keane),
the small dark dolichocephalic race
of the Mediterranean basin and
the western isles ( including dark
' Kelts '). During the formative pe-

riod of European culture (2) was
probably of little importance, and
(1) and (3) are possibly of closer
racial affinity to each other than
either of them is to (2).

3 Gomme, Ethnology in Folk-
lore, 21 ; Village Community, 69;
Report of Brit. Ass. (1896), 626 ;
F. L. Congress, 348 ; F. L. x. 129,
ascribes the fire customs of Europe
to Aryans and the water customs
to the pre-Aryans. A. Bertrand,
Religion des Gaulois, 68, considers
human sacrifice characteristically
pre-Aryan. There seems to me
more hope of arriving at a know-
ledge of specific Mediterranean cults,
before the Aryan intermixture, from
a study of the stone amulets and
cup-markings of the megaliths (Ber-
trand, op. cit. 42) or from such
investigations into ' Mycenaean '
antiquity as that of A.J. Evans,
Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult
(1901). The speculations of Nietz-
sche, \nA Genealogy of Morals and
elsewhere, as to the altruistic ' slave '
morality of the pre-Aryan and the
self-regarding morality of the con-
quering Aryan ' blond beast ' are
amusing or pitiful reading, accord-
ing to one's mood.

102 FOLK DRAMA

was a process already complete by the Middle Ages ; and for
the purpose of this investigation it seems justifiable, and in
the present state of knowledge even necessary, to treat the
village customs as roughly speaking homogeneous throughout
the whole of the Kelto-Teutonic area.

An analysis of these customs suggests a mental history
somewhat as follows. The first relations of man to the not-
man are, it need hardly be said, of a practical rather than
a sentimental or a philosophic character. They arise out of
an endeavour to procure certain goods which depend, in part
at least, upon natural processes beyond man's own control.
The chief of these goods is, of course, food ; that is to say, in
a primitive state of civilization, success in hunting, whether of
berries, mussels and ' witchetty grubs,' or of more elusive and
difficult game ; and later, when hunting ceases to be the main-
stay of existence, the continued fertility of the flocks and
herds, which form the support of a pastoral race, and of the
cornfields .and orchards which in their turn come to supple-
ment these, on the appearance of agriculture. Food once
supplied, the little tale of primitive man's limited conception
of the desirable is soon completed. Fire and a roof-tree are
his already. But he asks for physical health, for success in
love and in the begetting of offspring, and for the power to
anticipate by divination that future about which he is always so
childishly curious. In the pursuit, then, of these simple goods
man endeavours to control nature. But his earliest essays in
this direction are, as Dr. Frazer has recently pointed out, not
properly to be called religion1. The magical charms by

1 Frazer, G. B. i. 9 ' The fun- at pleasure and at any distance

damental principles on which it any person of whom, or any thing

[savage magic] is based would seem of which, he possesses a particle.

to be reducible to two : first, that Magic of the latter sort, resting as

like produces like, or that an effect it does on the belief in a certain

resembles its cause ; and second, secret sympathy which unites indis-

that things which have once been solubly things that have once been

in contact, but have ceased to be connected with each other may

so, continue to act upon each other appropriately be termed sympathe-

as if the contact still persisted, tic in the strict sense of the term.

From the first of these principles, Magic of the former kind, in which

the savage infers that he can pro- the supposed cause resembles or

duce any desired effect merely by simulates the supposed effect, may

imitating it ; from the second he conveniently be described as imi-

concludes that he can influence tative or mimetic' Cf. Jevons, 31

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 103

which he attempts to make the sun burn, and the waters fall,
and the wind blow as it pleases him, certainly do not imply-
that recognition of a quasi-human personality outside himself,
which any religious definition may be supposed to require as
a minimum. They are rather to be regarded as applications
of primitive science, for they depend upon a vague general
notion of the relations of cause and effect. To assume that
you can influence a thing through what is similar to it, or
through what has been in contact with it, which, according to
Dr. Frazer, are the postulates of magic in its mimetic and its
sympathetic form respectively, may be bad science, but at
least it is science of a sort, and not religion.

The magical charms play a large part in the village ritual,
and will be illustrated in the following chapter. Presently,
however, the scientific spirit is modified by that tendency of
animism through which man comes to look upon the external
world not as mere more or less resisting matter to be moved
hither or thither, but rather as a debateable land peopled with
spirits in some sense alive. These spirits are the active forces
dimly discerned by human imagination as at work behind the
shifting and often mysterious natural phenomena — forces of
the moving winds and waters, of the skies now clear, now
overcast, of the animal races of hill and plain, of the growth
waxing and waning year by year in field and woodland. The
control of nature now means the control of these powers, and
to this object the charms are directed. In particular, I think,

' The savage makes the generaliza- term for this sort of savage science,

tion that like produces like; and In its ordinary sense (the 'black

then he is provided with the means art '), it certainly contains a large

of bringing about anything he element of what Dr. Frr.zer dis-

wishes, fqr to produce an effect he tinguishes from magic as religion,

has only to imitate it. To cause a ' a propitiation or conciliation of

wind to blow, he flaps a blanket, as powers superior to man which are

the sailor still whistles to bring a believed to direct and control the

whistling gale. ... If the vegeta- course of nature and of human

tion requires rain, all that is needed life.' True, these powers are not

is to dip a branch in water, and to whom the orthodox religion is

with it to sprinkle the ground. Or directed, but the approach to them is

a spray of water squirted from the religious in the sense of the above

mouth will produce a mist suffi- definition. Such magic is in tact

ciently like the mist required to an amalgam of charms, which are

produce the desired effect ; or black Dr. Frazer's 'magic,' and spells,

clouds of smoke will be followed by which are his ' religion.' But so

black clouds of rain.' I do not feel are many more recognized cults,
that magic is altogether a happy

104 FOLK DRAMA

at this stage of his development, man conceives a spirit of that
food which still remains in the very forefront of his aspirations,
of his actual food-plant, or of the animal species which he
habitually hunts1. Of this spirit he initiates a cult, which
rests upon the old magical principle of the mastering efficacy
of direct contact. He binds the spirit literally to him by
wearing it as a garment, or absorbs it into himself in a solemn
meal, hoping by either process to acquire an influence or
power over it. Naturally, at this stage, the spirit becomes
to the eye of his imagination phytomorphic or theriomorphic
in aspect. He may conceive it as especially incarnate in a
single sacred plant or animal. But the most critical moment
in the history of animism is that at which the elemental spirits
come to be looked upon as anthropomorphic, made in the
likeness of man himself. This is perhaps due to the identifica-
tion of them with those other quasi-human spirits, of whose
existence man has by an independent line of thought also
become aware. These are the ghostly spirits of departed
kinsmen, still in some shadowy way inhabiting or revisiting
the house-place. The change does not merely mean that
the visible phytomorphic and theriomorphic embodiments of
mental forces sink into subordination ; the plants and animals
becoming no more than symbols and appurtenances of the
anthropomorphic spirit, or temporary forms with which from
time to time he invests himself. A transformation of the
whole character of the cult is involved, for man must now
approach the spirits, not merely by charms, although con-
servatism preserves these as an element in ritual, but with
modifications of the modes in which he approaches his fellow
man. He must beg their favour with submissive speech or
buy it with bribes. And here, with prayer and oblation,
religion in the stricter sense makes its appearance.

The next step of man is from the crowd of animistic spirits
to isolate the god. The notion of a god is much the old
notion of an anthropomorphic elemental spirit, widened,

1 Some facts of European animal F.L.xi.227. The relation of such

worship are dealt with in two impor- worship to the group of savage social

tant recent papers, one by S. Rei- institutions classed as totemism is a

nach in Revue celtique, xxi. 269, difficult and far from solved problem,

the other by N. W. Thomas, in which cannot be touched upon here.

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 105

exalted, and further removed from sense. Instead of a local
and limited home, the god has his dwelling in the whole
expanse of heaven or in some distant region of space. He
transcends and as an object of cult supplants the more
bounded and more concrete personifications of natural forces
out of which he has been evolved. But he does not annul
these : they survive in popular credence as his servants and
ministers. It is indeed on the analogy of the position of the
human chief amongst his comitatus that, in all probability,
the conception of the god is largely arrived at. Comparative
philology seems to show that the belief in gods is common to
the Aryan-speaking peoples, and that at the root of all the
cognate mythologies there lies a single fundamental divinity.
This is the Dyaus of the Indians, the Zeus of the Greeks, the
Jupiter of the Romans, the Tiwaz (O.H.G. Ziu, O.N. Tyr,
A.-S. Tiw) of the Teutons. He is an embodiment of the
great clear sunlit heavens, the dispenser of light to the hunts-
man, and of warmth and moisture to the crops. Side by side
with the conception of the heaven-god comes that of his female
counterpart, who is also, though less clearly, indicated in all
the mythologies. In her earliest aspect she is the lady of the
woods and of the blossoming fruitful earth. This primary
dualism is an extremely important factor in the explanation of
early religion. The all-father, the heaven, and the mother-
goddess, the earth, are distinct personalities from the begin-
ning. It does not appear possible to resolve one into a mere
doublet or derivative of the other. Certainly the marriage of
earth and heaven in the showers that fertilize the crops is one
of the oldest and most natural of myths. But it is generally
admitted that myth is determined by and does not determine
the forms of cult. The heaven-god and the earth-goddess
must have already had their separate existence before the
priests could hymn their marriage. An explanation of the
dualism is probably to be traced in the merging of two cults
originally distinct. These will have been sex-cults. Tillage
is, of course, little esteemed by primitive man. It was so with
the Germans, even up to the point at which they first came
into contact with the Romans \ Yet all the Aryan languages
1 Gummere, 39 ; Caesar, de B. G. iv. I. 7 ; vi. 22. 2 ; Tacitus, Germ. 26.

106 FOLK DRAMA

show some acquaintance with the use of grains \ The analogy
with existing savages suggests that European agriculture in
its early stages was an affair of the women. While the men
hunted or afterwards tended their droves of cattle and horses,
the women grubbed for roots, and presently learnt to scratch
the surface of the ground, to scatter the seed, and painfully to
garner and grind the scanty produce 2. As the avocations of
the sexes were distinct, so would their magic or their religion
be. Each would develop rites of its own of a type strictly
determined by its practical ambitions, and each would stand
apart from the rites of the other. The interest of the men
would centre in the boar or stag, that of the women in the
fruit-tree or the wheat-sheaf. To the former the stone altar
on the open hill-top would be holy ; to the latter the dim
recesses of the impenetrable grove. Presently when the god
concept appeared, the men's divinity would be a personifica-
tion of the illimitable and mysterious heavens beneath which
they hunted and herded, from which the pools were filled with
water, and at times the pestilence was darted in the sun rays ;
the women's of the wooded and deep-bosomed earth out of
which their wealth sprang. This would as naturally take
a female as that a male form. Agriculture, however, was
not for ever left solely to the women. In time pasturage and
tillage came to be carried on as two branches of a single pur-
suit, and the independent sex-cults which had sprung out of
them coalesced in the common village worship of later days.
Certain features of the primitive differentiation can still be
obscurely distinguished. Here and there one or the other sex

1 Schrader-Jevons, 281, says that the soil and the narrowed space
the Indo-Europeans begin their for pasturage. On the other hand,
history 'acquainted with the rudi- V. Hehn, Culturpflanzen und
ments of agriculture,' but ' still Haustiere, and Mommsen, Hist, of
possessed with nomadic tendencies.' Rome, i. 16, find the traces of agri-
He adds that considerable progress culture amongst the undivided
must have been made before the Indo-Europeans very slight ; the
dispersion ofthe European branches, word yava-^ka, which is common
and points out that agriculture to the tongues, need mean nothing
would naturally develop when the more than a wild cereal,
migratory hordes from the steppes 2 Jevons, 240, 255 ; Pearson, ii.
reached the great forests of central 42 ; O. T. Mason, Woma??s Share
Europe. For this there would be in Primitive Culture, 14.
two reasons, the greater fertility of

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 107

is barred from particular ceremonies, or a male priest must
perform his mystic functions in woman's garb. The heaven-
god perhaps remains the especial protector of the cattle, and
the earth-goddess of the corn. But generally speaking they
have all the interests of the farm in a joint tutelage. The
stone altar is set up in the sacred grove ; the mystic tree is
planted on the hill-top K Theriomorphic and phytomorphic
symbols shadow forth a single godhead 2. The earth-mother
becomes a divinity of light. The heaven-father takes up his
abode in the spreading oak.

The historic religions of heathenism have not preserved
either the primitive dualistic monotheism, if the phrase may be
permitted, or the simplicity of divine functions here sketched.
With the advance of civilization the objects of worship must
necessarily take upon them new responsibilities. If a tribe
has its home by the sea, sooner or later it trusts frail barks to
the waters, and to its gods is committed the charge of sea-
faring. When handicrafts are invented, these also become
their care. When the pressure of tribe upon tribe leads to
war, they champion the host in battle. Moral ideas emerge
and attach themselves to their service : and ultimately they
become identified with the rulers of the dead, and reign in the
shadowy world beyond the tomb. Another set of processes
combine to produce what is known as polytheism. The con-
stant application of fixed epithets to the godhead tends in the
long run to break up its unity. Special aspects of it begin to
take on an independent existence. Thus amongst the Teutonic
peoples Tiwaz-Thunaraz, the thunderous sky, gives rise to
Thunar or Thor, and Tiwaz-Frawiaz, the bounteous sky, to
Freyr. And so the ancient heaven-god is replaced by dis-
tinct gods of rain and sunshine, who, with the mother-goddess,
form that triad of divinities so prominent in several European
cults 3. Again as tribes come into contact with each other,

1 Burne-Jackson,352,362; Rhys, 'mound' at Marlborough were piled

C. F. i. 312 ; F. L. v. 339 ; Dyer, up.

133 ; Ditchfield, 70 ; cf. ch. vi. 2 Frazer, ii. 261, deals very fully

One of the hills so visited is the with the theriomorphic corn-spirits

artificial one of Silbury, and perhaps of folk belief.

the custom points to the object 3 On these triads and others in

with which this and the similar which three male or three female

108 FOLK DRAMA

there is a borrowing of religious conceptions, and the tribal
deities are duplicated by others who are really the same in
origin, but have different names. The mythological specula-
tions of priests and bards cause further elaboration. The
friendly national gods are contrasted with the dark hostile
deities of foreign enemies. A belief in the culture-hero or
semi-divine man, who wrests the gifts of civilization from the
older gods, makes its appearance. Certain cults, such as that
of Druidism, become the starting-point for even more philo-
sophic conceptions. The personal predilection of an important
worshipper or group of worshippers for this or that deity
extends his vogue. The great event in the later history of
Teutonic heathenism is the overshadowing of earlier cults by
that of Odin or Wodan, who seems to have been originally
a ruler of the dead, or perhaps a culture-hero, and not an
elemental god at all l. The multiplicity of forms under which
essentially the same divinity presents itself in history and in
popular belief may be illustrated by the mother-goddess of
the Teutons. As Freyja she is the female counterpart of
Freyr ; as Nerthus of Freyr's northern doublet, Njordr. When
Wodan largely absorbs the elemental functions, she becomes
his wife, as Frija or Frigg. Thr-ough her association with the
heaven-gods, she is herself a heaven- as well as an earth-
goddess 2, the Eostre of Bede 3, as well as the Erce of the
Anglo-Saxon ploughing charm 4. She is probably the Tanfana

figures appear, cf. Bertrand, 341 ; vocabatur, et cui in illo festa cele-

A. Maury, Croyances et L/gendes brabant, nomen habuit ; a cuius

du Moy 'en Age (1896), &; Matronen- nomine nunc paschale tempus co-

Kultus in Zeitschrift d. Vereins gnominant, consueto antiquae ob-

f. Volkskultur, ii. 24. I have not servationis vocabulo gaudia novae

yet seen L. L. Paine, The Ethnic solemnitatisvocantes.' There seems

Trinities and their Relation to the no reason for thinking with Golther

Christian Trinity (1901). and Tille, that Bede made a mis-

1 Mogk, iii. 333 ; Golther, 298 ; take. Charlemagne took the name

Grimm, iv. 1709; Kemble, i. 335; dstarmdnoth for April, perhaps

Rhys, C. H. 282 ; H. M. Chadwick, only out of compliment to the

Cult of Othin (1899). English, nuchas Alcuin, at his court.

3 Mogk, iii. 366 ; Golther, 428. * A Charm for unfruitful or

3 Mogk, iii. 374; Golther, 488; bewitched land (O.Cockayne., Leech-

Tille, Y. and C. 144 ; Bede, de temp, doms of Early England, R. S. i. 399) ;

ratione, c. 15 (Opera, ed. Giles, vi. cf. Grimm, i. 253; Golther, 455;

179) 'Eostur-monath qui nunc pas- Kdgel, i. I. 39. The ceremony has

chalis mensis interpretatur, quon- taken on a Christian colouring, but

dam a dea illorum, quae Eostre retains many primitive features.

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 109

of Tacitus and the Nehellenia of the Romano-Germanic votive
stones. If so, she must have become a goddess of mariners,
for Nehellenia seems to be the Isis of the interpretatio Romance.
As earth-goddess she comes naturally into relation with the
dead, and like Odin is a leader of the rout of souls. In
German peasant-lore she survives under various names, of
which Perchta is the most important ; in witch-lore, as Diana,
and by a curious mediaeval identification, as Herodias l. And
her more primitive functions are largely inherited by the
Virgin, by St. Walpurg and by countless local saints.

Most of the imaginative and mythological superstructure so
briefly sketched in the last paragraph must be considered as
subsequent in order of development to the typical village cult.
Both before and in more fragmentary shape after the death
of the old Keltic and Teutonic gods, that continued to be in
great measure an amalgam of traditional rites of forgotten
magical or pre-religious import. So far as the conscious-
ness of the mediaeval or modern peasant directed it to unseen
powers at all, which was but little, it was rather to some of
these more local and bounded spirits who remained in the
train of the gods, than to the gods themselves. For the pur-
poses of the present discussion, it is sufficient to think of it
quite generally as a cult of the spirits of fertilization, without
attaching a very precise connotation to that term. Unlike
the domestic cult of the ancestral ghosts, conducted for each
household by the house-father at the hearth, it was communal
in character. Whatever the tenure of land may have been,

Strips of turf are removed, and under the first furrow. Kogel con-
masses said over them. They are siders Erce to be derived from ero,
replaced after oil, honey, barm, 'earth.' Brooke, i. 217, states on
milk of every kind of cattle, twigs the authority of Montanus that a
of every tree, and holy water have version of the prayer preserved in
been put on the spot. Seed is a convent at Corvei begins ' Eostar,
bought at a double price from Eostar, Eordhanmodor.' He adds:
almsmen and poured into a hole ' nothing seems to follow from this
in the plough with salt and herbs, clerical error.' But why an error ?
Various invocations are used, in- The equation Erce-Eostre is con-
cluding one which calls on 'Erce, sistent with the fundamental identity
Erce, Erce, Eorthan modor,' and of the light-goddess and the earth-
implores the Almighty to grant her goddess.

fertility. Then the plough is driven, ' Tacitus, Ann. i. 51 ; Mogk,

and a loaf, made of every kind of iii. 373 ; Golther, 458 ; cf. ch. xii.
corn with milk and holy water, laid

110 FOLK DRAMA

there seems no doubt that up to a late period ' co-aration,' or
co-operative ploughing in open fields, remained the normal
method of tillage, while the cattle of the community roamed
in charge of a public herd over unenclosed pastures and forest
lands x. The farm, as a self-sufficing agricultural unit, is
a comparatively recent institution, the development of which
has done much to render the village festivals obsolete.
Originally the critical moments of the agricultural year were
the same for the whole village, and the observances which
they entailed were shared in by all.

The observances in question, or rather broken fragments of
them, have now attached themselves to a number of different
outstanding dates in the Christian calendar, and the recon-
struction of the original year, with its seasonal feasts, is
a matter of some difficulty2. The earliest year that can be
traced amongst the Aryan-speaking peoples was a bipartite
one, made up of only two seasons, winter and summer. For
some reason that eludes research, winter preceded summer,
just as night, in the primitive reckoning, preceded day. The
divisions seem to have been determined by the conditions of
a pastoral existence passed in the regularly recurring seasons
of central Europe. Winter began when snow blocked the
pastures and the cattle had to be brought home to the stall :
summer when the grass grew green again and there was once
more fodder in the open. Approximately these dates would
correspond to mid-November and mid-March 3. Actually, in
the absence of a calendar, they would vary a little from year

1 Gomme, Village Community, deutschen Mitt clatters (1S91).

157 ; B. C. A. Windle, Life in s In Scandinavia the winter

Early Britain, 200 ; F. W. Mait- naturally began earlier and ended

land, Domesday Book and Beyond, later. Throughout, Scandinavian

142, 337, 346. seasons diverged from those of

2 I have followed in many points Germany and the British Isles. In
the views on Teutonic chronology particular the high summer feast
o(Ti\le, Beulsc/ies IVeinnacltt(iSgs) and the consequent tripartition of
and Yule and Christmas (1899), the year do not seem to have estab-
which are accepted in the main by lished themselves (C. P. B. i. 430).
O. Schrader, Reallexicon der indo- Further south the period of stall-
germanischenAltertuf/iskunde, s.vv. feeding was extended when a better
Jahr, Jahreszeiten, and partly cor- supply of fodder made it possible
rect those of Weinhold, Ueber die (Tille, Y. and C. 56, 62 ; Burne-
deutsche Jalirtheilung (1862), and Jackson, 380).

Grotefend, Die Zeitrechnung des

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 111

to year and would perhaps depend on some significant annual
event, such as the first snowstorm in the one case1, in the
other the appearance of the first violet, butterfly or cockchafer,
or of one of those migratory birds which still in popular belief
bring good fortune and the summer, the swallow, cuckoo or
stork2. Both dates would give occasion for religious cere-
monies, together with the natural accompaniment of feasting
and revel. More especially would this be the case at mid-
November, when a great slaughtering of cattle was rendered
economically necessary by the difficulty of stall-feeding the
whole herd throughout the winter. Presently, however,
new conditions established themselves. Agriculture o-rew
in importance, and the crops rather than the cattle became
the central interest of the village life. Fresh feasts sprang up
side by side with the primitive ones, one at the beginning of
ploughing about mid-February, another at the end of harvest,
about mid-September. At the same time the increased
supply of dry fodder tended to drive the annual slaughtering
farther on into the winter. More or less contemporaneously
with these processes, the old bipartite year was changed into
a tripartite one by the growth of yet another new feast during
that dangerous period when the due succession of rain and
sun for the crops becomes a matter of the greatest moment to
the farmer. Early summer, or spring, was thus set apart
from late summer, or summer proper 3. This development

1 Cf. ch. xi, where the winter languages. The Keltic seasons, in
feasts are discussed in more detail. particular, seem to be closely

2 Grimm, ii. 675, 693, 762, notes parallel to the Teutonic. Of the
the heralds of summer. three great Keltic feasts described

3 Jahn, 34; Mogk, iii. 387; by Rhys, C. H. 409, 513, 676 ; C. F.
Golther, 572 ; Schnider-Jevons, i. 308, the Lugnassad was probably
303. The Germans still knew three the harvest feast, the Samhain the
seasons only when they came into old beginning of winter feast, and
contactwiththeRomans ; cf.Tacitus, the Beltain the high summer feast.
Germ. 26 ' annum quoque ipsum The meaning of ' Beltain ' (cf.
non in totidem digerunt species: N. E. D. s.v. Beltane) seems quite
hiems et ver et aestas intellcctum uncertain. A connexion is possible
acvocabulahabent,autumni perinde but certainly unproved with the
nomen ac bona ignorantur.' I do Abelio of the Pyrenean inscriptions,
not a^ree with Tille, Y. and C. 6, the Belenus-Apollo of those of the
that the tripartition of the year, in eastern Alps, and, more rarely,
this pre-calendar form, was 'of Provence (Roscher, Lexicon^ s.v.
foreign extraction.' Schrader shows Belenus ; Holder, Alt-celtischer
that it is common to the Aryan Sprachschatz,%.w. Belenus, Abelio;

112 FOLK DRAMA

also may be traced to the influence of agriculture, whose
interest runs in a curve, while that of herding keeps compara-
tively a straight course. But as too much sun or too much
wet not only spoils the crops but brings a murrain on the cattle,
the herdsmen fell into line and took their share in the high
summer rites. At first, no doubt, this last feast was a sporadic
affair, held for propitiation of the unfavourable fertilization
spirits when the elders of the village thought it called for.
And to the end resort may have been had to exceptional
acts of cult in times of especial distress. But gradually the
occasional ceremony became an annual one, held as soon as
the corn was thick in the green blade and the critical days
were at hand.

So far, there has been no need to assume the existence of
a calendar. How long the actual climatic conditions con-
tinued to determine the dates of the annual feasts can hardly
be said. But when a calendar did make its appearance, the
five feasts adapted themselves without much difficulty to it.
The earliest calendar that can be inferred in central Europe
was one, either of Oriental or possibly of Mediterranean
provenance, which divided the year into six tides of three-
score days each *. The beginnings of these tides almost
certainly fell at about the middle of corresponding months
of the Roman calendar 2. The first would thus be marked
by the beginning of winter feast in mid-November ; two
others by the beginning of summer feast and the harvest
feast in mid-March and mid-August respectively. A little
accommodation of the seasonal feasts of the farm would be
required to adapt them to the remaining three. And here
begins a process of dislocation of the original dates of
customs, now becoming traditional rather than vital, which

Ausonius, Pro/essores, iv. 7), or the Ecclesiological Society, i. 83.

Bel of Bohemia mentioned by Allso l Tille, Y. and C. 7, 148, suggests

(ch.xii). The Semitic Baal, although an Egyptian or Babylonian origin,

a cult of Belus, found its way into but the equation of the Gothic

the Roman world (cf. Appendix N, Jiuleis and the Cypriote IXalos,

No. xxxii, and Wissowa, 302), is lovXalos, lovXlrjos, lovKios as names

naturally even a less plausible re- for winter periods makes a Mediter-

lation. But it is dear to the folk- ranean connexion seem possible,

etymologist; cf. e.g. S. M. Mayhew, 2 Cf. ch. xi.
Baalism in Trans, of St. Parts

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 113

was afterwards extended by successive stages to a bewildering
degree. By this time, with the greater permanence of agri-
culture, the system of autumn ploughing had perhaps been
invented. The spring ploughing festival was therefore of less
importance, and bore to be shifted back to mid-January
instead of mid-February. Four of the six tides are now
provided with initial feasts. These are mid-November, mid-
January, mid-March, and mid-September. There are, however,
still mid-May and mid-July, and only the high summer feast
to divide between them. I am inclined to believe that a
division is precisely what took place, and that the hitherto
fluctuating date of the summer feast was determined in some
localities to mid-May, in others to mid-July l.

The European three-score-day-tide calendar is rather an
ingenious conjecture than an ascertained fact of history.
When the Germano-Keltic peoples came under the influence
of Roman civilization, they adopted amongst other things the
Roman calendar, first in its primitive form and then in the
more scientific one given to it under Julius Caesar. The latter
divided the year into four quarters and twelve months, and
carried with it a knowledge of the solstices, at which the
astronomy neither of Kelts nor of Germans seems to have pre-
viously arrived2. The feasts again underwent a process of dis-

1 Grimm, ii.615, notes that Easter and this Sermo may have been
fires are normal in the north, Mid- interpolated in the eighth century
summer fires in the south of (O. Reich, Uber Audoen's Lebens-
Germany. The Beltane fires both beschreibioig des heiligen Eligius
of Scotland and Ireland are usually (1872), cited in Rev. celtique, ix.
on May 1, but some of the Irish 433). It is not clear that the
examples collected by J. Jamieson, un-Romanized Teuton or Kelt made
Etym. Diet, of the Scottish Lan- a god of the sun, as distinct from
gua^e, s. v., are at midsummer. the heaven-god, who of course has

2 Tille, Y.andC. 71 ; Rhys, C. H. solar attributes and emblems. In
419. The primitive yearwas thermo- the same Sermo Eligius says 'nullus
metric, not astronomic, its critical dominos solem aut lunam vocet,
moments, not the solstices, a know- neque per eos iuret.' But the notion
ledge of which means science, but of ' domini ' may be post-Roman,
the sensible increase and diminution and the oath is by the permanent,
of heat in spring and autumn. The rather than the divine; cf. A. de
solstices came through Rome. Jubainville, Intr. i\ VEtude de la
TheSerm0Ettgii(Grimm,iv. 1737) Litt. celt. 181. It is noticeable that
has 'nullus in festivitate S. Ioannis German names for the sun are
vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemni- originallyfeminine and for the moon
tatibus solstitia . . . exerceat,' but Eli- masculine.

gius was a seventh-century bishop,

CHAMBERS. I I

114 FOLK DRAMA

location in order to harmonize them with the new arrangement.
The ceremonies of the winter feast were pulled back to Novem-
ber i or pushed forward to January i. The high summer feast
was attracted from mid-May and mid-July respectively to
the important Roman dates of the Floralia on May i and the
summer solstice on June 24. Last of all, to complete the con-
fusion, came, on the top of three-score-day-tide calendar and
Roman calendar alike, the scheme of Christianity with its
host of major and minor ecclesiastical festivals, some of them
fixed, others movable. Inevitably these in their turn began
to absorb the agricultural customs. The present distribution
of the five original feasts, therefore, is somewhat as follows.
The winter feast is spread over all the winter half of the year
from All Souls day to Twelfth night. A later chapter will
illustrate its destiny more in detail. The ploughing feast is
to be sought mainly in Plough Monday, in Candlemas and
in Shrovetide or Carnival 1 ; the beginning of summer feast in
Palm Sunday, Easter and St. Mark's day ; the early variety
of the high summer feast probably also in Easter, and certainly
in May-day, St. George's day, Ascensiontide with its Roga-
tions, Whitsuntide and Trinity Sunday ; the later variety of
the same feast in Midsummer day and Lammastide ; and the
harvest feast in Michaelmas. These are days of more or less
general observance. Locally, in strict accordance with the
policy of Gregory the Great as expounded, to Mellitus, the
floating customs have often settled upon cpnveniently neigh-
bouring dates of wakes, rushbearings, kirmesses and other
forms of vigil or dedication festivals 2 ; and even, in the utter

1 Mogk, iii. 393; Golther, 584; 'shoot.' Bede, de temp. rat. c. 15,

Jahn, 84; Caspari, 35; Saupe, 7; calls February Sol-monath, which he

Hauck, ii. 357; Michels, 93. The explains as 'mensis placentarum.'

ploughing feast is probably the September, the month of the harvest-

spurcalia of the Indiculus and of festival, is Haleg-in-math, or 'mensis

Eadhelm, de laudibus virginitatis, sacrorum.'

c. 25, and the dies spurci of the 2 Pfannenschmidt, 244 ; Brand,

Horn, de Sacrilegiis. This term ii. 1 ; Ditchfield, 130; Burne-Jack-

appears in the later German name son, 439 ; Burton, Rushbearing,

for February, Sporkele. It seems 147 ; Schaff, vi. 544 ; Duchesne,

to be founded on Roman analogy 385. The dedication of churches

from spurcus, ' unclean.' Pearson, was solemnly carried out from the

ii. 159, would, however, trace it to an fourth century, and the anniver-

Aryan root sp/ierag, ' swell,' ' burst,' sary observed. Gregory the Great

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK

115

oblivion of their primitive significance, upon the anniversaries
of historical events, such as Royal Oak day on May 29 \ or
Gunpowder day. Finally it may be noted, that of the five
feasts that of high summer is the one most fully preserved in
modern survivals. This is partly because it comes at a con-
venient time of year for the out-of-door holiday-making which
serves as a preservative for the traditional rites ; partly also
because, while the pastoral element in the feasts of the
beginnings of winter and summer soon became comparatively
unimportant through the subordination of pasturage to tillage,
and the ploughing and harvest feasts tended more and more
to become affairs of, the individual farm carried out in close
connexion with those operations themselves, the summer feast
retained its communal character and continued to be cele-
brated by the whole village for the benefit of everybody's
crops and trees, and everybody's flocks and herds2. It is
therefore mainly, although not wholly, upon the summer feast
that the analysis of the agricultural ritual to be given in the
next chapter will be based.

ordered ' solemnitates ecclesiarum
dedicationum per singulos annos
sunt celebrandae.' The A.-S. Canons
of Edgar (960), c. 28 (W'ilkins, i. 227),
require them to be kept with sobriety.
Originally the anniversary, as well
as the actual dedication day, was
observed with an all night watch,
whence the name vigilia, wakes.
Belethus, de rat. offic. (P. L. ccii.
141), c. 137, says that the custom
was abolished owing to the immo-
rality to which it led. But the ' eve '
of these and other feasts continued
to share in the sanctity of the ' day,'
a practice in harmony with the
European sense of the precedence
of night over day (cf. Schrader-
Jevons, 311; Bertrand, 267, 354,

413). An Act of Convocation in
1536 (Wilkins, iii. 823) required all
wakes to be held on the first Sunday
in October, but it does not appear
to have been very effectual.

1 S. O. Addy, in F. L. xii. 394,
has a full account of ' Garland day'
at Castleton, Derbyshire, on May 29;
cf. F. L. xii. 76 (Wishford, Wilts) ;
Burne-Jackson, 365.

2 The classification of agricultural
feasts in U. Jahn, Die dentschen
Opfergebrauche, seems through-
out to be based less on the facts
of primitive communal agriculture,
than on those of the more elaborate
methods of the later farms with their
variety of crops.

I 2

CHAPTER VI
VILLAGE FESTIVALS

[Bibliographical Note. — A systematic calendar of English festival usages
by a competent folk-lorist is much needed. J. Brand, Observations on
Popular Antiquities (1777), based on H. Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares
(1725 s and edited, first by Sir Henry Ellis in 1813, 1841-2 and 1849, and
then by W. C. Hazlitt in 1870, is full of valuable material, but belongs to the
age of pre-scientific antiquarianism. R. T. Hampson, Medii Acvi Kalen-
darium (1841), is no less unsatisfactory. In default of anything better,
T. F. T. Dyer, British Popular Customs (1891), is a useful compilation
from printed sources, and P. H. Ditchfield, Old English Customs (1896),
a gossipy account of contemporary survivals. These may be supplemented
from collections of more limited range, such as H. J. Feasey, Ancient
Englisii Holy Week Ceremonial (1897), and J. E. Vaux, Church Folk-Lore
(1894) ; by treatises on local folk-lore, of which W. Henderson, Notes
on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders
(2nd ed. 1879), C. S. Burne and G. F. Jackson, Shropshire Folk-Lore
(1883-5), and J. Rhys, Celtic Folk-L^ore, Welsh and Manx (1901), are the
best ; and by the various publications of the Folk-Lore Society, especially
the series of County Folk-Lore (1895-9) ar,d tne successive periodicals,
The Folk-Lore Record (1878-82), Folk-Lore Journal (1883-9), and Folk-
Lore (1890-1903). Popular accounts of French/?/^ are given by E. Cortet,
Essai sur les Fetes religieuses (1867), and O. Havard, Les Fetes de nos
Plres (1898). L. J. B. Berenger-Feraud, Superstitions et Survivances
(1896), is more pretentious, but not really scholarly. C. Leber, Disserta-
tions relatives a V Histoire de France (1826-38), vol. ix, contains interesting
material of an historical character, largely drawn from papers in the
eighteenth-century periodical L^e Mercure de France. Amongst German
books, J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (transl. J. S. Stallybrass, 1880-8),
H. Pfannenschmidt, Germanische Erntefeste (1878), and U. Jahn, Die
deutschen Opfergebrduche bei Ackerbau und Viehsucht (1884), are all
excellent. Many of the books mentioned in the bibliographical note to
the last chapter remain useful for the present and following ones ; in
particular J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (2nd ed. 1900), is, of course,
invaluable. I have only included in the above list such works of general
range as I have actually made most use of. Many others dealing with
special points are cited in the notes. A fuller guide to folk-lore literature
will be found in M. R. Cox, Lntroduction to Folklore (2nd ed. 1897).]

The central fact of the agricultural festivals is the presence
in the village of the fertilization spirit in the visible and
tangible form of flowers and green foliage or of the fruits of
the earth. Thus, when the peasants do their ' observaunce to
a morn of May,' great boughs of hawthorn are cut before

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 117

daybreak in the woods, and carried, with other seasonable
leafage and blossom, into the village street. Lads plant
branches before the doors of their mistresses. The folk deck
themselves, their houses, and the church in green. Some of
them are clad almost entirely in wreaths and tutties, and be-
come walking bushes, ' Jacks i' the green.' The revel centres
in dance and song around a young tree set up in some open
space of the village, or a more permanent May-pole adorned
for the occasion with fresh garlands. A large garland, often
with an anthropomorphic representation of the fertilization
spirit in the form of a doll, parades the streets, and is accom-
panied by a ' king ' or ' queen,' or a ' king ' and ' queen '
together. Such a garland finds its place at all the seasonal
feasts ; but whereas in spring and summer it is naturally
made of the new vegetation, at harvest it as naturally takes
the form of a sheaf, often the last sheaf cut, of the corn.
Then it is known as the 'harvest- May' or the 'neck,' or if it is
anthropomorphic in character, as the ' kern-baby.' Summer
and harvest garlands alike are not destroyed when the festival
is over, but remain hung up on the May-pole or the church
or the barn-door until the season for their annual renewing
comes round. And sometimes the grain of the 'harvest-May'
is mingled in the spring with the seed-corn1.

The rationale of such customs is fairly simple. They
depend upon a notion of sympathetic magic carried on into
the animistic stage of belief. Their object is to secure the
beneficent influence of the fertilization spirit by bringing
the persons or places to be benefited into direct contact with
the physical embodiment of that spirit. In the burgeoning
quick set up on the village green is the divine presence.
The worshipper clad in leaves and flowers has made himself
a garment of the god, and is therefore in a very special sense
under his protection. Thus efficacy in folk-belief of physical
contact may be illustrated by another set of practices in
which recourse is had to the fertilization spirit for the cure of
disease. A child suffering from croup, convulsions, rickets,

1 Frazer, i. 193; ii. 96: Brand, is minutely studied by S. O. Addy,

i. 125 ; Dyer, 2^.3 ; Ditchfield, 95 ; Garland Day at Castlcton, in F. L.

Philpot, 144; Grimm, ii. 762 ; &c, xii. 394.
&c. A single example of the custom

118 FOLK DRAMA

or other ailment, is passed through a hole in a split tree,
or beneath a bramble rooted at both ends, or a strip of turf
partly raised from the ground. It is the actual touch of
earth or stem that works the healing K

May-pole or church may represent a focus of the cult at
some specially sacred tree or grove in the heathen village.
But the ceremony, though it centres at these, is not con-
fined to them, for its whole purpose is to distribute the
benign influence over the entire community, every field, fold,
pasture, orchard close and homestead thereof. At plough-
ing, the driving of the first furrow ; at harvest, the home-
coming of the last wain, is attended with ritual. Probably all
the primitive festivals, and certainly that of high summer,
included a lustration, in which the image or tree which stood
for the fertilization spirit was borne in solemn procession from
dwelling to dwelling and round all the boundaries of the
village. Tacitus records the progress of the earth-goddess
Nerthus amongst the German tribes about the mouth of the
Elbe, and the dipping of the goddess and the drowning of
her slaves in a lake at the term of the ceremony 2. So too
at Upsala in Sweden the statue of Freyr went round when
winter was at an end 3 ; while Sozomenes tells how, when
Ulfilas was preaching Christianity to the Visigoths, Atha-
naric sent the image of his god abroad in a wagon, and burnt
the houses of all who refused to bow down and sacrifice4.
Such lustrations continue to be a prominent feature of the
folk survivals. They are preserved in a number of pro-
cessional customs in all parts of England ; in the municipal
' ridings,' ' shows,' or ' watches ' on St. George's5 or Midsummer6

1 A. B.Gomme, ii. 507; Hartland, Martini, 0 12, by Sulpicius Severus
Perseus, ii. 187; Grimm, iv. 1738, {Opera, ed. Halm, in Corp. Script.
1747 ; Gaidoz, Un vieux rite medi- Eccl. Hist. i. 122) 'quia esset haec
cal (1893). Gallorum rusticis consuetudo, simu-

2 Tacitus, Germania, 40. lacradaemonurn,candidotectavela-
8 Vigfusson and Ungar, Flatey- mine, misera per agros suos circum-

jarbok, i. 337; Grimm, i. 107; Gum- ferre dementia,' and Alsso's account

mere, G. O. 433 ; Mogk, iii. 321 ; of the fifteenth-century calendisa-

Golther, 228. tiones in Bohemia (ch. xii).

4 Sozomenes, Hist. Eccles. vi. yj. 5 Cf. ch. x.

Cf. also Indiculus (ed. Saupe, 32) 6 Cf. Representations (Chester,

'de simulacro, quod per campos London, York). There were similar

portant,' the fifth-century Vita S. watches at Nottingham (Deering,

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 119

days ; in the ' Godiva ' procession at Coventry *, the ' Bezant '
procession at Shaftesbury 2. Hardly a rural merry-making or
wake, indeed, is without its procession ; if it is only in the
simple form of the quite which the children consider them-
selves entitled to make, with their May-garland, or on some
other traditional pretext, at various seasons of the calendar.
Obviously in becoming mere quetes, collections of eggs, cakes
and so forth, or even of small coins, as well as in falling
entirely into the hands of the .children, the processions have
to some extent lost their original character. But the notion
that the visit is to bring good fortune, or the ' May ' or the
'summer' to the household, is not wholly forgotten in the
rhymes used 3. An interesting version of the ceremony is
the 'furry' or 'faddy' dance formerly used at Helston
wake; for in this the oak-decked dancers claimed the right
to pass in at one door and out at another through every
house in the village4.

Room has been found for the summer lustrations in the
scheme of the Church. In Catholic countries the statue of
the local saint is commonly carried round the village, either
annually on his feast-day or in times of exceptional trouble 5.
The inter-relations of ecclesiastical and folk-ritual in this re-
spect are singularly illustrated by the celebration of St.Ubaldo's
eve (May 15) at Gubbio in Umbria. The folk procession of
the Ceri is a very complete variety of the summer festival.
After vespers the clergy also hold a procession in honour of
the saint. At a certain point the two companies meet. An
interchange of courtesies takes place. The priest elevates
the host ; the bearers of the Ceri bow them to the ground ;
and each procession passes on its way 6. In England the
summer lustrations take an ecclesiastical form in the Roga-

Hist. of Nott. 123), Worcester 3 Cf. ch. viii.

(Smith, English Gilds, 408), Lydd 4 Dyer, 275 ; Ditchfield, in ; cf.

and Bristol (Green, Town Life in the phrase ' in and out the windows '

the Fifteenth Century, i. 148), and of the singing game Round and

on St. Thomas's day (July 7) at Round the Village (A. B. Gomme,

Canterbury {Arch, Cant. xii. 34; s. v.).

Hist. MSS. ix. 1. 148). 6 M. Deloche, Le Tour de la

1 Harris, 7 ; Hartland, Fairy Lunade, in Rev. celtique, ix. 425 ;
Tales, 71. Berenger-Fe"raud, i. 423 > ni- l67-

2 Dyer, 205. * Bower, 13.

120

FOLK DRAMA

tions or ' bannering ' of ' Gang-week,' a ceremony which itself
appears to be based on very similar folk-customs of southern
Europe1. Since the Reformation the Rogations have come
to be regarded as little more than a ' beating of the bounds.'
But the declared intention of them was originally to call for
a blessing upon the fruits of the earth ; and it is not difficult
to trace folk-elements in the ' gospel oaks ' and 'gospel wells'
at which station was made and the gospel read, in the peeled
willow wands borne by the boys who accompany the pro-
cession, in the whipping or ' bumping ' of the said boys at the
stations, and in the choice of ' Gang-week ' for such agri-
cultural rites a? ' youling ' and ' well-dressing 2.'

Some anthropomorphic representation of the fertilization
spirit is a common, though not an invariable element in the
lustration.- A doll is set on the garland, or some popular
'giant' or other image is carried round3. Nor is it sur-
prising that at the early spring festival which survives in

1 Duchesne, 276; Usener, i. 293 ;
Tille, Y. and C. 5 1 ; W. W. Fowler,
124; Boissier, La Religion romaine,
i. 323. The Rogations or litaniae
minores represent in Italy the Am-
barvalia on May 29. But they are
of Gallican origin, were begun by
Mamertus, bishop of Vienne (1470;,
adapted by the Council of Orleans
(511), c. 27 (Mansi, viii. 355), and
required by the English Council of
Clovesho (747), c. 16 (Haddan-
Stubbs, iii. 368), to be held ' non
admixtis vanitatibus, uti mos est
plurimis, vel negligentibus, vel im-
peritis, id est in ludis et equorum
cursibus, et epulis maioribus.' Jahn,
147, quotes the German abbess
Marcsuith (940), who describes
them as ' pro gentilicio Ambarvali,'
and adds, 'confido autem de Patroni
huius misericordia, quod sic ab eo
gyrade terrae semina uberius pro-
venient, et variae aeris inclemen-
tiae cessent.' Mediaeval Rogation
litanies are in Sarum Processional,
103, and York Processional {York
Manual, 182). The more strictly
Roman litania major on St. Mark's
day (March 25) takes the place of
the Rubigalia, but is not of great

importance in English folk-custom.

2 Injunctions, ch. xix, of 1559
(Gee- Hardy, Docts. illustrative of
English Church History, 426).
Thanks are to be given to God 'for
the increase and abundance of his
fruits upon the face of the earth.'
The Book of Homilies contains an
exhortation to be used on the occa-
sion. The episcopal injunctions and
interrogatories in Ritual Commis-
sion, 404, 409, 416, &c, endeavour
to preserve the Rogations, and to
eliminate ' superstition ' from them ;
for the development of the notion
of ' beating of bounds,' cf. the
eighteenth-century notices in Dyer,
Old English Social Life, 196.

3 The image is represented by
the doll of the May-garland, which
has sometimes, according to Ditch-
field, 102, become the Virgin Mary,
with a child doll in its arms, and at
other times (e. g. Castleton, E. L.
xii. 469) has disappeared, leaving
the name of ' queen ' to a particular
bunch of flowers ; also by the 'giant'
of the midsummer watch. The
Salisbury giant, St. Christopher,
with his hobby-horse, Hob-nob, is
described in Rev. d. T. P. iv. 601.

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 121

Plough Monday, the plough itself, the central instrument of
the opening labour, figures. A variant of this custom may
be traced in certain maritime districts, where the functions of
the agricultural deities have been extended to include the
oversight of seafaring. Here it is not a plough but a boat
or ship that makes its rounds, when the fishing season is
about to begin. Ship processions are to be found in various
parts of Germany 1 ; at Minehead, Plymouth, and Devonport
in the west of England, and probably also at Hull in the
north 2.

The magical notions which, in part at least, explain the
garland customs of the agricultural festival, are still more
strongly at work in some of its subsidiary rites. These
declare themselves, when understood, to be of an essentially
practical character, charms designed to influence the weather,
and to secure the proper alternation of moisture and warmth
which is needed alike for the growth and ripening of the
crops and for the welfare of the cattle. They are probably
even older than the garland-customs, for they do not imply
the animistic conception of a fertilization spirit immanent in
leaf and blossom ; and they depend not only upon the
1 sympathetic ' principle of influence by direct contact already
illustrated, but also upon that other principle of similarity
distinguished by Dr. Frazer as the basis of what he calls
' mimetic ' magic. To the primitive mind the obvious way
of obtaining a result in nature is to make an imitation of it
on a small scale. To achieve rain, water must be splashed
about, or some other characteristic of a storm or shower must
be reproduced. To achieve sunshine, a fire must be lit, or
some other representation of the appearance and motion of
the sun must be devised. Both rain-charms and sun-charms
are very clearly recognizable in the village ritual.

As rain-charms, conscious or unconscious, must be classified

1 Grimm, i. 257 ; Golther, 463 ; the currus navalis used by Roman

Mogk, iii. 374 ; Hahn, Demeter und women. A modern survival at

Bai/bo, 38; Uscner, Die Sinljluth- Frejus is described in F. L. xii. 307.

sagen, 115. There are parallels 2 Ditchfield, 103; Transactions

in south European custom, both of Devonshire Association, xv. 104;

classical and modern, and Usener cf. the Noah's ship procession at

even derives the term 'carnival,' Hull (Representation s, s. v.).
not from camem ievare, but from

122 FOLK DRAMA

the many festival customs in which bathing or sprinkling holds
an important place. The image or bough which represents
the fertilization spirit is solemnly dipped in or drenched with
water. Here is the explanation of the ceremonial bathing
of the goddess Nerthus recorded by Tacitus. It has its
parallels in the dipping of the images of saints in the feast-
day processions of many Catholic villages, and in the buckets
of water sometimes thrown over May-pole or harvest-May.
Nor is the dipping or drenching confined to the fertilization
spirit. In order that the beneficent influences of the rite
may be spread widely abroad, water is thrown on the fields
and on the plough, while the worshippers themselves, or
a representative chosen from among them, are sprinkled or
immersed. To this practice many survivals bear evidence ;
the virtues persistently ascribed to dew gathered on May
morning, the ceremonial bathing of women annually or in
times of drought with the expressed purpose of bringing
fruitfulness on man or beast or crop, the ' ducking ' customs
which play no inconsiderable part in the traditions of many
a rural merry-making. Naturally enough, the original sense
of the rite has been generally perverted. The 'ducking' has
become either mere horse-play or else a rough-and-ready
form of punishment for offences, real or imaginary, against
the rustic code of conduct. The churl who will not stop
working or will not wear green on the feast-day must be
1 ducked,' and under the form of the ' cucking-stool,' the
ceremony has almost worked its way into formal juris-
prudence as an appropriate treatment for feminine offenders.
So, too, it has been with the ' ducking ' of the divinity. When
the modern French peasant throws the image of his saint
into the water, he believes himself to be doing it, not as
a mimetic rain-charm, but as a punishment to compel a
power obdurate to prayer to grant through fear the required
boon.

The rain-charms took place, doubtless, at such wells,
springs, or brooks as the lustral procession passed in its
progress round the village. It is also possible that there may
have been, sometimes or always, a well within the sacred
grove itself and hard by the sacred tree. The sanctity

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 123

derived by such wells and streams from the use of them in
the cult of the fertilization spirit is probably what is really
intended by the water-worship so often ascribed to the
heathen of western Europe, and coupled closely with tree-
worship in the Christian discipline-books. The goddess of
the tree was also the goddess of the well. At the con-
version her wells were taken over by the new religion. They
became holy wells, under the protection of the Virgin or one
of the saints. And they continued to be approached with
the same rites as of old, for the purpose of obtaining the
ancient boons for which the fertilization spirit had always
been invoked. It will not be forgotten that, besides the public
cult of the fertilization spirit for the welfare of the crops
and herds, there was also a private cult, which aimed at
such more personal objects of desire as health, success in
love and marriage, and divination of the future. It is this
private cult that is most markedly preserved in modern holy
well customs. These may be briefly summarized as follows \
The wells are sought for procuring a husband or children,
for healing diseases, especially eye-ailments or warts, and for
omens, these too most often in relation to wedlock. The
worshipper bathes wholly or in part, or drinks the water.
Silence is often enjoined, or a motion deasil, that is, with
the sun's course, round the well. Occasionally cakes are
eaten, or sugar and water drunk, or the well-water is splashed
on a stone. Very commonly rags or bits of wool or hair are
laid under a pebble or hung on a bush near the well, or pins,
more rarely coins or even articles of food, are thrown into it.
The objects so left are not probably to be regarded as offerings ;
the intention is rather to bring the worshipper, through the
medium of his hair or clothes, or some object belonging to
him, into direct contact with the divinity. The close con-
nexion between tree- and well-cult is shown by the use of

the neighbouring bush on which to hang the rags. And the

1 Brand, ii. 223 ; Grimm, ii. 584 ; Couch, Ancient and Holy Wells of

Elton, 284 ; Gorame, Ethnology, 73 ; Cornwall (1894) ; J. Rhys, C. F. i.

Hartland, Perseus, ii. 175 ; Haddon, 332, 354, and in F. L. iii. 74. iv. 55 5

362; Vaux, 269; Wood-Martin, ii. A. W. Moore, in F.L. v. 212 ; H.C.

46 ; BeVenger-Fdraud, iii. 291 ; R. C. March, in F. L. x. 479 (Dorset).
Hope, Holy Wells; M.-L. Quiller-

124 FOLK DRAMA

practice of dropping pins into the well is almost exactly
paralleled by that of driving nails ' for luck ' into a sacred tree
or its later representative, a cross or saintly image. The theory
may be hazarded that originally the sacred well was never
found without the sacred tree beside it. This is by no means
the case now ; but it must be remembered that a tree is much
more perishable than a well. The tree once gone, its part in
the ceremony would drop out, or be transferred to the well.
But the original rite would include them both. The visitant,
for instance, would dip in the well, and then creep under
or through the tree, a double ritual which seems to survive in
the most curious of all the dramatic games of children, ' Draw
a Pail of Water V

The private cult of the fertilization spirit is not, of course,
tied to fixed seasons. Its occasion is determined by the
needs of the worshipper. But it is noteworthy that the
efficacy of some holy wells is greatest on particular days,
such as Easter or the first three Sundays in May. And in
many places the wells, whether ordinarily held ' holy ' or not,
take an important place in the ceremonies of the village festival.
The ' gospel wells ' of the Rogation processions, and the well
to which the ' Bezant ' procession goes at Shaftesbury are
cases in point ; while in Derbyshire the ' well-dressings ' corre-
spond to the ' wakes,' ' rushbearings,' and ' Mayings ' of other
districts. Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, as well as the
Rogation days, are in a measure Christian versions of the
heathen agricultural feasts, and it is not, therefore, surprising
to find an extensive use of holy water in ecclesiastical ritual,
and a special rite of Benedictio Fontium included amongst
the Easter ceremonies 2. But the Christian custom has been
moralized, and its avowed aim is purification rather than
prosperity.

The ordinary form of heat-charm was to build, in semblance

1 A. B. Gomme, s. v. ; Haddon, lichen Cultus (1869). The Bene-
362. dictio Fontium took place on Easter

2 Schaff, iii. 247 ; Duchesne, 281, Saturday, in preparation for the
385 ; Rock, iii. 2. 101, 180; Maskell, baptism which in the earliest times
i. cccxi ; Feasey, 235 ; Wordsworth, was a characteristic Easter rite. The
24; Pfannenschmidt, Das Weih- formulae are in York Missal, i. 121 ;
wasser im heidnischen und christ- Sarum Missal, 350; Maskell, i. 13.

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 125

of the sun, the source of heat, a great fire l. Just as in the
rain-charm the worshippers must be literally sprinkled with
water, so, in order that they may receive the full benefits of
the heat-charm, they must come into direct physical contact
with the fire, by standing in the smoke, or even leaping
through the flames, or by smearing their faces with the
charred ashes 2. The cattle too must be driven through the fire,
in order that they may be fertile and free from pestilence
throughout the summer ; and a whole series of observances
had for their especial object the distribution of the preserving
influence over the farms. The fires were built on high ground,
that they might be visible far and wide. Or they were built
in a circle round the fields, or to windward, so that the smoke
might blow across the corn. Blazing arrows were shot in the
air, or blazing torches carried about. Ashes were sprinkled
over the fields, or mingled with the seed corn or the fodder
in the stall 3. Charred brands were buried or stuck upright in
the furrows. Further, by a simple symbolism, the shape and
motion of the sun were mimicked with circular rotating
bodies. A fiery barrel or a fiery wheel was rolled down the
hill on the top of which the ceremony took place. The
lighted torches were whirled in the air, or replaced by lighted
disks of wood, flung on high. All these customs still linger
in these islands or in other parts of western Europe, and often
the popular imagination finds in their successful performance
an omen for the fertility of the year.

On a priori grounds one might have expected two agricul-
tural festivals during the summer ; one in the earlier part of
it, when moisture was all-important, accompanied with rain-
charms ; the other later on, when the crops were well grown

1 Frazer, iii. 237; Gomme, in Brit, chimney-sweeps' holiday.

Ass. Rep. (1896), 626; Simpson, s The reasons given are various,

195 ; Grenier, 380; Gaidoz, 16 ; Ber- ' to keep off hail ' (whence the term

trand, 98 ; Gummere, 1. O. 400 ; Hagelfeuer mentioned by Pfannen-

Grimm, ii. 601; Jahn, 25; Brand, schmidt, 67), 'vermin,' 'caterpillars,'

i. 127, 166; Dyer, 269, 311, 332; ' blight,' ' to make the fields fertile.'

Ditchfield, 141 ; Cortet, 211. In Bavaria torches are carried round

- To this custom may possibly the fields 'to drive away the wicked

be traced the black-a-vised figures sower' (of tares ?). In Northumber-

who are persistent in the folk ludi, land raids are made on the ashes of

and also the curious tradition neighbouring villages (Dyer, 332).
which makes May-day especially the

126

FOLK DRAMA

and heat was required to ripen them, accompanied with sun-
charms. But the evidence is rather in favour of a single
original festival determined, in the dislocation caused by
a calendar, to different dates in different localities l. ■ The
Midsummer or St. John's fires are perhaps the most widely-
spread and best known of surviving heat-charms. But they
can be paralleled by others distributed all over the summer
cycle of festivals, at Easter2 and on May-day, and in con-
nexion with the ploughing celebrations on Epiphany, Candle-
mas, Shrovetide, Quadragesima, and St. Blaize's day. It is
indeed at Easter and Candlemas that the Bene die tiones,
which are the ecclesiastical versions of the ceremony, appear
in the ritual-books 3. On the other hand, although, perhaps
owing to the later notion of the solstice, the fires are greatly
prominent on St. John's day, and are explained with con-
siderable ingenuity by the monkish writers 4, yet this day
was never a fire-festival and nothing else. Garland customs
are common upon it, and there is even evidence, though slight

1 Cf. p. 113.

2 I know of no English Easter
folk-fires, but St. Patrick is said to
have lit one on the hill of Slane,
opposite Tara, on Easter Eve, 433
(Feasey, 180).

3 Schaff, v. 403 ; Duchesne, 240 ;
Rock, iii. 2. 71, 94, 98, 107, 244 ;
Feasey, 184; Wordsworth, 204;
Frazer, iii. 245 ; Jahn, 129 ; Grimm,
ii.616; Simpson, 198. The formulae
of the benedictio ignis and benedictio
cereorum at Candlemas, and the
benedictio ignis, benedictio incensi,
and benedictio cerei on Easter Eve,
are in Sarum Missal, 334, 697 ;
York Missal, i. 109; ii. 17. One
York MS. has ' Paschae ignis de
berillo vel de silice exceptus . . .
accenditur.' The correspondence
between Pope Zacharias and St.
Boniface shows that the lighting of
the ignis by a crystal instead of
from a lamp kept secretly burning
distinguished Gallican from Roman
ceremonial in the eighth century
(Jaffe, 2291). All the lights in the
church are previously put out, and
this itself has become a ceremony
in the Tenebrae. Ecclesiastical

symbolism explained the extinction
and rekindling of lights as typifying
the Resurrection. Sometimes the
ignis provides a light for the folk-
fire outside.

4 Belethus (+ 1 162), de Div. Offic.
c. 137 (P. L. ccii. 141), gives three
customs of St. John's Eve. Bones
are burnt, because (1) there are
dragons in air, earth, and water,
and when these ' in aere ad libidi-
nem concitantur, quod fere fit, saepe
ipsum sperma vel in puteos vel in
aquas fluviales eiiciunt, ex quo le-
thalis sequitur annus,' but the smoke
of the bonfires drives them away ;
and (2) because St. John's bones
were burnt in Sebasta. Torches
are carried, because St. John was
a shining light. A wheel is rolled,
because of the solstice, which is
made appropriate to St. John by St.
John iii. 30. The account of Bele-
thus is amplified by Durandus, Ra-
tionale Div. Offic. (ed. corr. Antwerp,
1614) vii. 14, and taken in turn from
Durandus by a fifteenth-century
monk of Winchelscombe in a ser-
mon preserved in Harl. MS. 2345,
f. 49 (b).

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 127

evidence, for rain-charms1. It is perhaps justifiable to infer
that the crystallization of the rain- and heat-charms, which
doubtless were originally used only when the actual condition
of the weather made them necessary, into annual festivals,
took place after the exact rationale of them had been lost,
and they had both come to be looked upon, rather vaguely,
as weather-charms.

Apart from the festival-fires, a superstitious use of sun-
charms endured in England to an extraordinarily late date. This
was in times of drought and pestilence as a magical remedy
against mortality amongst the cattle. A fire was built, and,
as on the festivals, the cattle were made to pass through the
smoke and flames2. On such occasions, and often at the
festival-fires themselves, it was held requisite that, just as
the water used in the rain-charms would be fresh- water from
the spring, so the fire must be fresh fire. That is to say,
it must not be lit from any pre-existing fire, but must be
made anew. And, so conservative is cult, this must be done,
not with the modern device of matches, or even with flint
and steel, but by the primitive method of causing friction in
dry work. Such fire is known as ' need-fire ' or ' forced fire,'
and is produced in various ways, by rubbing two pieces of
wood together, by turning a drill in a solid block, or by rapidly
rotating a wheel upon an axle. Often certain precautions are
observed, as that nine men must work at the job, or chaste
boys ; and often all the hearth-fires in the village are first
extinguished, to be rekindled by the new flame3.

The custom of rolling a burning wheel downhill from the

1 Gaidoz, 24, 109 ; Bertrand, 122 ; fetter. It is variously derived from
Dyer, 323; Stubbes, i. 339, from ndt 'need,' ninwan 'rub,' or hnio-
Naogeorgos; Usener, ii. 81; and the tan 'press.' If the last is right,
mediaeval calendar in Brand, i. 179. the English form should perhaps

2 Gomme,mBn't.Ass.J?ep.(iSg6), be knead-fire (Grimm, ii. 607, 609 ;
636 (Moray, Mull) ; F. L. ix. 280 Golther, 570). Another German
(Caithness, with illustration of wood term is Wildfeuer. The Gaelic
used); Kemble, i. 360 (Perthshire tin-egin is from tin ' fire,' and egin
in 1826, Devonshire). 'violence' (Grimm, ii. 609). For

3 Grimm, ii. 603 ; Kemble, i. ecclesiastical prohibitions cf. Indi-
359; Elton, 293; Frazer, iii. 301; cuius (Saupe, 20) ' de igne fricato
Gaidoz, 22; Jahn, 26; Simpson, de Ijgno, i. e. nodfyr ' ; Capit.Karl-
196; Bertrand, 107; Golther, 570. manni (742), c. 5 (Grimm, ii. 604)
The English term is needjire, ' illos sacrilegos ignes quos niedfyr
Scotch neid/yre, German Noth- vocant.'

128

FOLK DRAMA

festival-fire amongst the vineyards has been noted. The
wheel is, of course, by no means an uncommon solar emblem *.
Sometimes round bannocks or hard-boiled eggs are similarly
rolled downhill. The use of both of these may be sacrificial
in its nature. But the egg plays such a large part in festival
customs, especially at Easter, when it is reddened, or gilt, or
coloured yellow with furze or broom flowers, and popularly
regarded as a symbol of the Resurrection, that one is tempted
to ask whether it does not stand for the sun itself2. And
are we to find the sun in the ' parish top V or m the ball with
which, even in cathedrals, ceremonial games were played 4 ?

1 Gaidoz, I ; Bertrand, 109, 140;
Simpson, 109, 240 ; Rhys, C. H. 54.
The commonest form of the symbol
is the swastika, but others appear to
be found in the 'hammer' of Thor,
and on the altars and statues of
a Gaulish deity equated in the
interpretatio Romana with Jupiter.
There is a wheel decoration on the
barelle or cars of the Gubbio ceri
(Bower, 4).

2 Brand, i. 97 ; Dyer, 159 ; Ditch-
field, 78. Eggs are used cere-
monially at the Scotch Beltane fires
(Frazer, iii. 261 ; Simpson, 285).
Strings of birds' eggs are hung on
the Lynn May garland {F. L. x.
443). In Dauphine an omelette is
made when the sun rises on St.
John's day (Cortet, 217). In Ger-
many children are sent to look for
the Easter eggs in the nest of a
hare, a very divine animal. Among
the miscellaneous Benedictions in
the Sarum Manual, with the Ben.
Seminis and the Ben. Pomorum in
die Su Iacobi are a Ben. Carnis
Casei Butyri Ovorum sive Pastil-
larum in Pascha and a Ben. Agni
Paschalis, Ovorum et Herbarum in
die Paschae. These Benedictions
are little more than graces. The
Durham Accounts, i. 71-174, con-
tain entries of fifteenth- and sixteenth-
century payments 'fratribus et soro-
ribus de Wytton pro eorum Egsilver
erga festum pasche.'

3 Tiv. N. i. 3. 42 ' He's a coward
and a coystrill,that will not drink to

my niece till his brains turn o' the
toe like a parish-top.' Steevens
says ' a large top was formerly kept
in every village, to be whipt in frosty
weather, that the peasants might be
kept warm by exercise and out of
mischief while they could not work.'
This is evidently a ' fake ' of the
' Puck of commentators.' Hone,
E.D.B. i. 199, says 'According to
a story (whether true or false), in
one of the churches of Paris, a choir
boy used to whip a top marked
with Alleluia, written in gold letters,
from one end of the choir to the
other.' The ' burial of Alleluia ' is
shown later on to be a mediaeval
perversion of an agricultural rite.
On the whole question of tops, see
Haddon, 255 ; A. B. Gomme, s. v.
4 Leber, ix. 391 ; Barthelemy, iv.
447 ; Du Tilliot, 30 ; Grenier, 385 ;
Be'renger-Fe'raud, iii. 427; Belethus,
c. 120 ' Sunt nonnullae ecclesiae
in quibus usitatum est, ut vel etiam
episcopi et archiepiscopi in coenobiis
cum • suis ludant subditis, ita ut
etiam se ad lusum /pilae demit-
tant. atque haec quidem libertas
ideo dicta est decembrica. . . . quam-
quam vero magnae ecclesiae, ut
est Remensis, hanc ludendi con-
suetudinem qbservent, videtur ta-
men laudabilius esse non ludere ' ;
Durandus, vi. 86 ' In quibusdam
locis hac die, in aliis in Natali,
praelati cum suis clericis ludunt,
vel in claustris, vel in domibus epi-
scopalibus ; ita ut etiam descendant

VILLAGE FESTIVALS

129

If so, perhaps this game of ball may be connected with the
curious belief that if you get up early enough on Easter
morning you may see the sun dance x.

In any case sun-charms, quite independent of the fires, may
probably be traced in the circular movements which so often
appear invested with a religious significance, and which some-
times form part of the festivals 2. It would be rash to regard
such movements as the basis of every circular dance or ronde
on such an occasion ; a ring is too obviously the form which
a crowd of spectators round any object, sacred or otherwise,
must take. But there are many circumambulatory rites in
which stress is laid on the necessity for the motion to be
deasil, or with the right hand to the centre, in accordance
with the course of the sun, and not in the opposite direction,
cartnaitheail or wither shinsz. And these, perhaps, may be
legitimately considered as of magical origin.

ad ludum pilae, vel etiam ad choreas
et cantus, &c.' Often the ball play
was outside the church, but the ca-
nons of Evreux on their return from
the procession noire of May I , played
' ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae ' ;
and the Easter pilota of Auxerre
which lasted to 1538, took place
in the nave before vespers. Full
accounts of this ceremony have
been preserved. The dean and
canons danced and tossed the ball,
singing the Victimaepu rchali. For
examples of Easter hand-ball or
marbles in English folk-custom, cf.
Brand, i. 103 ; Vaux, 240 ; F. L,
xii. 75 ; Mrs. Gomme, s. v. Hand-
ball.

1 Brand, i. 93 ; Burne- Jackson,
335. A Norfolk version (F. L. vii.
90) has ' dances as if in agony.'
On the Mendips (F. L. v. 339) what
is expected is ' a lamb in the sun.'
The moon, and perhaps the sun also,
is sometimes 'wobbly,' 'jumping'
or ' skipping,' owing to the presence
of strata of air differing in humidity
or temperature, and so changing
the index of refraction (Nicholson,
Golspie, 186). At Pontesford Hill
in Shropshire (Burne-Jackson, 330)
the pilgrimage was on Palm Sunday,
actually to pluck a sprig from a

haunted yew, traditionally ' to look
for the golden arrow,' which must
be solar. In the Isle of Man hills,
on which are sacred wells, are
visited on the Lugnassad, to gather
ling-berries. Others say that it
is because of Jephthah's daughter,
who went up and down on the
mountains and bewailed her vir-
ginity. And the old folk now stop
at home and read Judges xi (Rhys,
C. F. i. 312). On the place of hill-
tops in agricultural religion cf. p.
106, and for the use of elevated spots
for sun-worship at Rome, ch. xi.

2 Simpson, passim ; cf. F. L. vi.
168; xi. 220. Deasil is from Gaelic
deas, 'right,' 'south.' Mediaeval
ecclesiastical processions went
' contra solis cursum et morem eccle-
siasticum ' only in seasons of woe
or sadness (Rock, iii. 2. 182).

3 Dr. Murray kindly informs me
that the etymology of ivithershins
(A.-S. wipersynes) is uncertain. It
is from wiper, ' against,' and either
some lost noun, or one derived from
se"on, ' to see,' or sitip, ' course.'
The original sense is simply ' back-
wards,' and the equivalence with dea-
sil not earlier than the seventeenth
century. A folk-etymology from
shine may account for the aspirate.

CHAMBERS. I

130 FOLK DRAMA

With the growth of animistic or spiritual religion, the mental
tendencies, out of which magical practices or charms arise,
gradually cease to be operative in the consciousness of the
worshippers. The charms themselves, however, are preserved
by the conservative instinct of cult. In part they survive as
mere bits of traditional ritual, for which no particular reason
is given or demanded ; in part also they become material for
that other instinct, itself no less inveterate in the human
mind, by which the relics of the past are constantly in process
of being re-explained and brought into new relations with the
present. The sprinkling with holy water, for instance, which
was originally of the nature of a rain-charm, comes to be
regarded as a rite symbolical of spiritual purification and
regeneration. An even more striking example of such trans-
formation of intention is to be found in the practice, hardly
yet referred to in this account of the agricultural festivals, of
sacrifice. In the ordinary acceptation of the term, sacrifice
implies not merely an animistic, but an anthropomorphic
conception of the object of cult. The offering or oblation
with which man approaches his god is an extension of the
gift with which, as suppliant, he approaches his fellow men.
But the oblational aspect of sacrifice is not the only one.
In his remarkable book upon The Religion of the Semites,
Professor Robertson Smith has formulated another, which
may be distinguished as ' sacramental.' In this the sacrifice
is regarded as the renewal of a special tie between the god
and his worshippers, analogous to the blood-bond which
exists amongst those worshippers themselves. The victim
is not an offering made to the god ; on the contrary, the
god himself is, or is present in, the victim. It is his blood
which is shed, and by means of the sacrificial banquet and
its subsidiary rites, his personality becomes, as it were,
incorporated in those of his clansmen1. It is not necessary
to determine here the general priority of the two types or

1 Robertson Smith, Religion of distinguished the 'alimentary ' sac-

the Semites, 196; Jevons, 130; rifice of food and other things made

Frazer, ii. 352; Grant Allen, 318; to the dead. This rests on the

Hartland, ii. 236 ; Turnbull, The belief in the continuance of the

Blood Covenant. Perhaps, as a mortal life with its needs and desires

third type of sacrifice, should be after death.

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 131

conceptions of sacrifice described. But, while it is probable
that the Kelts and Teutons of the time of the conversion
consciously looked upon sacrifice as an oblation, there is also
reason to believe that, at an earlier period, the notion of
a sacrament had been the predominant one. For the
sacrificial ritual of these peoples, and especially that used
in the agricultural cult, so far as it can be traced, is only
explicable as an elaborate process of just that physical
incorporation of the deity in the worshippers and their
belongings, which it was the precise object of the sacramental
sacrifice to bring about. It will be clear that sacrifice, so
regarded, enters precisely into that category of ideas which
has been defined as magical. It is but one more example
of that belief in the efficacy of direct contact which lies at
the root of sympathetic magic. As in the case of the garland
customs, this belief, originally pre-animistic, has endured into
an animistic stage of thought. Through the garland and the
posies the worshipper sought contact with the fertilization
spirit in its phytomorphic form ; through sacrifice he
approaches it in its theriomorphic form also. The earliest
sacrificial animals, then, were themselves regarded as divine,
and were naturally enough the food animals of the folk. The
use made by the Kelto-Teutonic peoples of oxen, sheep, goats,
swine, deer, geese, and fowls requires no explanation. A
common victim was also the horse, which the Germans seem,
up to a late date, to have kept in droves and used for food.
The strong opposition of the Church to the sacrificial use of
horse-flesh may possibly account for the prejudice against
it as a food-stuff in modern Europe1. A similar prejudice,
however, in the case of the hare, an animal of great impor-
tance in folk belief, already existed in the time of Caesar2.
It is a little more puzzling to find distinct traces of sacrificial

1 Grimm, i. 47; Golther, 565; Stubbs, iii. 458) 'equos etiam ple-

Gummere,c7. 0.40,457. Gregorylll rique invobis comedunt, quodnullus

wrote (+73 1 ) to Boniface (P. Z.lxxxix. Christianorum in Orientalibus facit.'

577) ' inter cetera agrestem cabal- The decking of horses is a familiar

luin aliquantos comedere ad- feature of May-day in London and

iunxisti plerosque et domesticum. elsewhere.

hoc nequaquam fieri deinceps si- 2 C. J. Billson, The Easter Hare,

nas,' cf. Councils of Cealcythe and in F. L. iii. 441.
Pincanhale (787), c. 19 (Haddan-

K 2

132 FOLK DRAMA

customs in connexion with animals, such as the dog, cat, wolf,
fox, squirrel, owl, wren, and so forth, which are not now
food animals *. But they may once have been such, or the
explanation may lie in an extension of the sacrificial practice
after the first rationale of it was lost.

At every agricultural festival, then, animal sacrifice may be
assumed as an element. The analogy of the relation between
the fertilization spirit and his worshippers to the human blood
bond makes it probable that originally the rite was always
a bloody one 2. Some of the blood was poured on the sacred
tree. Some was sprinkled upon the worshippers, or smeared
over their faces, or solemnly drunk by them 3. Hides, horns,
and entrails were also hung upon the tree4, or worn as festival
trappings 5. The flesh was, of course, solemnly eaten in the
sacrificial meal 6. The crops, as well as their cultivators, must
benefit by the rites ; and therefore the fields, and doubtless
also the cattle, had their sprinkling of blood, while heads or
pieces of flesh were buried in the furrows, or at the threshold
of the byre 7. A fair notion of the whole proceeding may be
obtained from the account of the similar Indian worship of
the earth-goddess given in Appendix I. The intention of the
ceremonies will be obvious by a comparison with those
already explained. The wearing of the skins of the victims
is precisely parallel to the wearing of the green vegetation,
the sprinkling with blood to the sprinkling with lustral water,
the burial in the fields of flesh and skulls to the burial of

1 N.W. Thomas in F. L. xi. 227. phic larva or mask (Frazer, Pau-

2 Grimm, i. 55 ; Golther, 559, sanias, iv. 239).

575; Gummere, G. O. 456. The 6 Grimm, i. 46, 57 ; Golther, 576;

universal Teutonic term for sacri- Frazer, ii. 31S, 353; Jevons, 144;

ficing is blotan. Grant Allen, 325. Savages believe

3 Frazer, Pausam'as,i'ri. 20; Jevons, that by eating an animal they will
130,191. Does the modern hunts- acquire its bodily and mental
man know why he 'bloods' a qualities.

novice ? 7 Jahn, 14, and for classical pa-

* Grimm, i. 47, 57,77; Jahn, 24 ; rallels Frazer, ii. 315 ; Pausanias,

Gummere, G. O. 459. Hence the iii. 288 ; Jevons, Plutarch, lxix.

theriomorphic ' image.' 143. Grant Allen, 292, was told as

0 Robertson Smith, 414, 448; a boy in Normandy that at certain

Jevons, 102, 285; Frazer, ii. 448; lustrations 'a portion of the Host

Lang, M. R. R} ii. 73, 80, 106, 214, (stolen or concealed, I imagine) was

226 ; Grant Allen, 335 ; Du Meril, sometimes buried in each field.'

Com. i. 75. Hence the theriomor-

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 133

brands from the festival-fire. In each case the belief in the
necessity of direct physical contact to convey the beneficent
influence is at the bottom of the practice. It need hardly be
said that of such physical contact the most complete example
is in the sacramental banquet itself.

It is entirely consistent with the view here taken of the
primitive nature of sacrifice, that the fertilization spirit was
sacrificed at the village festivals in its vegetable as well as in
its animal form. There were bread-offerings as well as meat-
offerings1. Sacramental cakes were prepared with curious
rituals which attest their primitive character. Like the
tcharnican or Beltane cakes, they were kneaded and moulded
by hand and not upon a board 2 ; like the loaf in the Anglo-
Saxon charm, they were compounded of all sorts of grain
in order that they might be representative of every crop in
the field 3. At the harvest they would naturally be made,
wholly or in part, of the last sheaf cut. The use of them
corresponded closely to that made of the flesh of the sacrificial
victim. Some were laid on a branch of the sacred tree4;
others flung into the sacred well or the festival-fire ; others
again buried in the furrows, or crumbled up and mingled with
the seed-corn5. And like the flesh they were solemnly eaten
by the worshippers themselves at the sacrificial banquet.
With the sacrificial cake went the sacrificial draught, also
made out of the fruits of the earth, in the southern lands wine,
but in the vineless north ale, or cider, or that mead which
Pytheas described the Britons as brewing out of honey and
wheat 6. Of this, too, the trees and crops received their share,
while it filled the cup for those toasts or minnes to the dead and
to Odin and Freyja their rulers, which were afterwards trans-
ferred by Christian Germany to St. John and St. Gertrude7.

The animal and the cereal sacrifices seem plausible enough,
but they do not exhaust the problem. One has to face the
fact that human sacrifice, as Victor Hehn puts it, 'peers

1 Frazer, ii. 318; Grant Allen, 2) a bit of the bannock is reserved
337 5 Jevons, 206. for the ' cuack ' or cuckoo, here

2 F.L. vi. 1. doubtless the inheritor of the gods.

3 Frazer, ii. 319; Jevons, 214; 5 Grimm, iii. 1240.
cf. the ndva-Tiepfw. at the Athenian 6 Elton, 428.

Pyanepsia. 7 Grimm, i. 59; Gummere, G. O.

4 In the Beltane rite (F. L. vi. 455.

134 FOLK DRAMA

uncannily forth from the dark past of every Aryan race1.
So far as the Kelts and Teutons go, there is plenty of evidence
to show, that up to the very moment of their contact with
Roman civilization, in some branches even up to the very
moment of their conversion to Christianity, it was not yet
obsolete 2. An explanation of it is therefore required, which
shall fall in with the general theory of agricultural sacrifice.
The subject is very difficult, but, on the whole, it seems
probable that originally the slaying of a human being at an
annually recurring festival was not of the nature of sacrifice
at all. It is doubtful whether it was ever sacrifice in the
sacramental sense, and although in time it came to be regarded
as an oblation, this was not until the first meaning, both of
the sacrifice and of the human death, had been lost. The
essential .facts bearing on the question have been gathered
together by Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough. He brings
out the point that the victim in a human sacrifice was not
originally merely a man, but a very important man, none
other than the king, the priest-king of the tribe. In many
communities, Aryan-speaking and other, it has been the
principal function of such a priest-king to die, annually or
at longer intervals, for the people. His place is taken, as
a rule, by the tribesman who has slain him 3. Dr. Frazer's
own explanation of this custom is, that the head of the tribe
was looked upon as possessed of great magical powers, as
a big medicine man, and was in fact identified with the god
himself. And his periodical death, says Dr. Frazer, was
necessary, in order to renew the vitality of the god, who
might decay and cease to exist, were he not from time to
time reincarnated by being slain and passing into the body
of his slayer and successor4. This is a highly ingenious

1 V. Hehn, Culturpflanzen, 438. norum, daemonibus obtulerit' ; Lex

2 Grimm, i. 44, 48, 53 ; Golther, Frisionu7n} additio sup. tit. 42 ' qui
561 ; Gummere,CV. O. 45 9; Schrader, fanum effregerit . . . immolatur diis,
422; Mogk, iii. 388; Meyer, 199, quorum templa violavit ' ; Epist.
and for Keltic evidence Elton, 270. Greg. Ill, 1 (P. L. lxxxix, 578) ' hoc
Many of these examples belong quoque inter alia crimina agi in
rather to the war than to the agri- partibus illis dixisti, quod quidam ex
cultural cult. The latest in the fidelibus ad immolandum paganis
west are Capit. de pariib. Saxon. 9 sua venundent mancipia.'

' Si quis hominem diabolo sacrifi- 3 Frazer, ii. 1 ; Jevons, 279.

caverit et in hostiam, more paga- 4 Frazer, ii. 5, 59.

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 135

and fascinating theory, but unfortunately there are several
difficulties in the way of accepting it. In the first place it
is inconsistent with the explanation of the sacramental
killing of the god arrived at by, Professor Robertson Smith.
According to this the sacrifice of the god is for the sake
of his worshippers, that the blood-bond with them may be
renewed ; and we have seen that this view fits in admirably
with the minor sacrificial rites, such as the eating and bury-
ing of the flesh, as the wearing of the horns and hides.
Dr. Frazer, however, obliges us to hold that the god is also
sacrificed for his own sake, and leaves us in the position of
propounding two quite distinct and independent reasons for
the same fact. Secondly, there is no evidence, at least
amongst Aryan-speaking peoples, for that breaking down
of the very real and obvious distinction between the god and
his chief worshipper or priest, which Dr. Frazer's theory
implies. And thirdly, if the human victim were slain as
being the god, surely this slaughter should have replaced
the slaughter of the animal victim previously slain for the
same reason, which it did not, and should have been followed
by a sacramental meal of a cannibal type, of which also, in
western Europe, there is but the slightest trace \

Probably, therefore, the alternative explanation of Dr.
Frazer's own facts given by Dr. Jevons is preferable. Ac-
cording to this the death of the human victim arises out of
the circumstances of the animal sacrifice. The slaying of the
divine animal is an act approached by the tribe with mingled
feelings. It is necessary, in order to renew the all-essential
blood-bond between the god and his worshippers. And at
the same time it is an act of sacrilege ; it is killing the god.
There is some hesitation amongst the assembled worshippers.
Who will dare the deed and face its consequences ? ' The
clansman,' says Dr. Jevons, 'whose religious conviction of
the clan's need of communion with the god was deepest,
would eventually and after long waiting be the one to
strike, and take upon himself the issue, for the sake of

1 Strabo, iv. 5. 4 ; Bastian, Oestl. not necessarily represent a primitive
Asien, v. 272. The Mexican evi- notion of the nature of the rite,
dence given by Frazer, iii. 134, does

136 FOLK DRAMA

his fellow men.' This issue would be twofold. The slayer
would be exalted in the eyes of his fellows. He would
naturally be the first to drink the shed blood of the god.
A double portion of the divine spirit would enter into him.
He would become, for a while, the leader, the priest-king, of
the community. At the same time he would incur blood-
guiltiness. And in a year's time, when his sanctity was
exhausted, the penalty would have to be paid. His death
would accompany the renewal of the bond by a fresh sacrifice,
implying in its turn the self-devotion of a fresh annual king 1.

These theories belong to a region of somewhat shadowy
conjecture. If Dr. Jevons is right, it would seem to follow
that, as has already been suggested, the human death at an
annual festival was not initially sacrifice. It accompanied,
but did not replace the sacramental slaughter of a divine
animal. But when the animal sacrifice had itself changed
its character, and was looked upon, no longer as an act of
communion' with the god, but as an offering or bribe made
to him, then a new conception of the human death also was
required. When the animal ceased to be recognized as the
god, the need of a punishment for slaying it disappeared.
But the human death could not be left meaningless, and its
meaning was assimilated to that of the animal sacrifice itself.
It also became an oblation, the greatest that could be offered
by the tribe to its protector and its judge. And no doubt
this was the conscious view taken of the matter by Kelts and
Teutons at the time when they appear in history. The human
sacrifice was on the same footing as the animal sacrifice, but it
was a more binding, a more potent, a more solemn appeal.

In whatever way human sacrifice originated, it was ob-
viously destined, with the advance of civilization, to undergo
modification. Not only would the growing moral sense of
mankind learn to hold it a dark and terrible thing, but also
to go on killing the leading man of the tribe, the king-priest,
would have its obvious practical inconveniences. At first,
indeed, these would not be great. The king-priest would be

1 Jevons, 291 ; Plutarch, Ixx. at Athens and the regifugium at
For traces of the blood-guiltiness Rome (Frazer, ii. 294 ; Robertson
incurred by sacrifice, cf. the frovfyovia Smith, i. 286).

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 137

little more than a rain-maker, a rex sacrorum, and one
man might perform the ceremonial observances as well as
another. But as time went on, and the tribe settled down
to a comparatively civilized life, the serious functions of its
leader would increase. He would become the arbiter of
justice, the adviser in debate ; above all, when war grew
into importance, the captain in battle. And to spare and
replace, year by year, the wisest councillor and the bravest
warrior would grow into an intolerable burden. Under some
such circumstances, one can hardly doubt, a process of sub-
stitution set in. Somebody had to die for the king. At first,
perhaps, the substitute was an inferior member of the king's
own house, or even an ordinary tribesman, chosen by lot.
But the process, once begun, was sure to continue, and
presently it was sufficient if a life of little value, that of
a prisoner, a slave, a criminal, a stranger within the gates,
was sacrificed \ The common belief in madness or imbecility
as a sign of divine possession may perhaps have contributed
to make the village fool or natural seem a particularly suit-
able victim. But to the very end of Teutonic and Keltic
heathenism, the sense that the substitute was, after all, only
a substitute can be traced. In times of great stress or
danger, indeed, the king might still be called upon to suffer
in person2. And always a certain pretence that the victim
was the king was kept up. Even though a slave or criminal,
he was for a few days preceding the sacrifice treated royally.
He was a temporary king, was richly dressed and feasted,
had a crown set on his head, and was permitted to hold revel
with his fellows. The farce was played out in the sight of
men and gods3. Ultimately, of course, the natural growth
of the sanctity of human life in a progressive people, or in
an unprogressive people the pressure of outside ideals 4,
forbids the sacrifice of a man at all. Perhaps the temporary

1 Frazer, ii. 15, 55, 232 ; Jevons, Grant Allen, 296.

280 ; Grant Allen, 242, 296, 329. 4 The British rule in India for-

2 In three successive years of bids human sacrifice, and the
famine the Swedes sacrificed first Khonds, a Dravidian race of Ben-
oxen, then men, finally their king gal, have substituted animal for
Domaldi himself ( Ynglingasaga, human victims within the memory
c. 18). of man (Frazer, ii. 245).

3 Frazer, ii. 24 ; Jevons, 280 ;

138 FOLK DRAMA

king is still chosen, and even some symbolic mimicked slaying
of him takes place ; but actually he does not die. An animal
takes his place upon the altar ; or more strictly speaking, an
animal remains the last victim, as it had been the first, and in
myth is regarded as a substitute for the human victim which
for a time had shared its fate. Of such a myth the legends
of Abraham and Isaac and of Iphigeneia at Aulis are the
classical examples.

There is another group of myths for which, although they
lack this element of a substituted victim, mythologists find an
origin in a reformation of religious sentiment leading to the
abolition of human sacrifice. The classical legend of Perseus
and Andromeda, the hagiological legend of St. George and
the Dragon, the Teutonic legend of Beowulf and Grendel,
are only types of innumerable tales in which the hero puts
an end to the periodical death of a victim by slaying the
monster who has enforced and profited by it 1. What is
such a story but the imaginative statement of the fact that
such sacrifices at one time were, and are not ? It is, how-
ever, noticeable, that in the majority of these stories, although
not in all, the dragon or monster slain has his dwelling in
water, and this leads to the consideration of yet another
sophistication of the primitive notion of sacrifice. According
to this notion sacrifice was necessarily bloody ; in the shed-
ding of blood and in the sacrament of blood partaken of by
the worshippers, lay the whole gist of the rite : a bloodless
sacrifice would have no raison d'etre. On the other hand,
the myths just referred to seem to imply a bloodless sacrifice
by drowning, and this notion is confirmed by an occasional
bit of ritual, and by the common superstition which repre-
sents the spirits of certain lakes and rivers as claiming
a periodical victim in the shape of a drowned person 2.
Similarly there are traces of sacrifices, which must have been
equally bloodless, by fire. At the Beltane festival, for
instance, one member of the party is chosen by lot to be

1 Hartland, iii. i ; Frazer, Pau- 2 Hartland, iii. 81 ; Grimm, ii.
sanias, iv. 197; v. 44, 143; Beren- 494; Gummere, G. O. 396. The
ger-Feraud, i. 207. Mr. Frazer enu- slaves of Nerthus were drowned in
merates forty-one versions of the the same lake in which the god-
legend, dess was dipped.

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 139

the ' victim,' is made to jump over the flames and is spoken
of in jest as ' dead V Various Roman writers, who apparently
draw from the second-century B.C. Greek explorer Posido-
nius, ascribe to the Druids of Gaul a custom of burning
human and other victims at quinquennial feasts in colossal
images of hollow wickerwork ; and squirrels, cats, snakes and
other creatures are frequently burnt in modern festival-fires 2.
The constant practice, indeed, of burning bones in such fires
has given them the specific name of bonfires, and it may be
taken for granted that the bones are only representatives of
more complete victims. I would suggest that such sacrifices
by water and fire are really developments of the water- and
fire-charms described in the last chapter ; and that just as
the original notion of sacrifice has been extended to give a
new significance to the death of a human being at a religious
festival, when the real reason for that death had been for-
gotten, so it has been still further extended to cover the
primitive water- and fire-charms when they too had become
meaningless. I mean that at a festival the victims, like the
image and the worshippers, were doubtless habitually flung
into water or passed through fire as part of the charm ; and
that, at a time when sacrifice had grown into mere oblation
and the shedding of blood was therefore no longer essential,
these rites were adapted and given new life as alternative
methods of effecting the sacrifice.

It is not surprising that there should be but few direct and
evident survivals of sacrifice in English village custom. For
at the time of the conversion the rite must have borne the
whole brunt of the missionary attack. The other elements of
the festivals, the sacred garlands, the water- and fire- charms,
had already lost much of their original significance. A judge-
ment predisposed to toleration might plausibly look upon

1 F. L. vi. I. festival-fires. But elsewhere, as in

2 Frazer, iii. 319; Gaidoz, 27; the midsummershows, such 'giants'
Cortet, 213; Simpson, 221; Ber- seem to be images of the agri-
trand, 68; F. L. xii. 315. The cultural divinities, and it is not clear
work of Posidonius does not exist, by what process they came to be
but was possibly used by Caesar, burnt and so destroyed. Perhaps
B. G. vi. 15; Strabo, iv. 4. 5; they were originally only smoked,
Diodorus, v. 32. Wicker 'giants' just as they were dipped.

are still burnt in some French

140 FOLK DRAMA

them as custom rather than worship. It was not so with
sacrifice. This too had had its history, and in divers ways
changed its character. But it was still essentially a liturgy.
Oblation or sacrament, it could not possibly be dissociated
from a recognition of the divine nature of the power in whose
honour it took place. And therefore it must necessarily be
renounced, as a condition of acceptance in the Church at all,
by the most weak-kneed convert. What happened was
precisely that to which Gregory the Great looked forward.
The sacrificial banquet, the great chines of flesh, and the
beakers of ale, cider, and mead, endured, but the central
rite of the old festival, the ceremonial slaying of the animal,
vanished. The exceptions, however, are not so rare as might
at first sight be thought, and naturally they are of singular
interest. It has already been pointed out that in times of
stress and trouble, the thinly veneered heathenism of the
country folk long tended to break out, and in particular that
up to a very late date the primitive need-fire was occa-
sionally revived to meet the exigencies of a cattle-plague.
Under precisely similar circumstances, and sometimes in
immediate connexion with the need-fire, cattle have been
known, even during the present century, to be sacrificed l.
Nor are such sporadic instances the only ones that can be
adduced. Here and there sacrifice, in a more or less modi-
fied form, remains an incident in the village festival. The
alleged custom of annually sacrificing a sheep on May-day at
Andreas in the Isle of Man rests on slight evidence 2 ; but
there is a fairly well authenticated example in the ' ram
feast' formerly held on the same day in the village of
Holne in Devonshire. A ram was slain at a granite pillar
or ancient altar in the village ' ploy-field,' and a struggle
took place for slices which were supposed to bring luck 3.

1 Gomme, Ethnology, 137 ; F.L. s 1 N. Q, vii. 353 ; Gomme, Eth-
ii. 300; x. 101 ; xii. 217; Vaux, nology, 32; Village Community,
287; Rhys, C. F. i. 306. 113 ; Grant Allen, 290. The custom

2 F. L. ii. 302 ; Rhys, C. F. i. 307. was extinct when it was first de-
In 1656, bulls were sacrificed near scribed in 1853, and some doubt
Dingwall (F. L. x. 353). A few has recently been thrown upon the
additional examples, beyond those ' altar,' the ' struggle ' and other
here given, are mentioned by N. W. details ; cf. Trans, of Devonshire
Thomas, in F. L. xi. 247. Assn. xxviii. 99 ; F. L. viii. 287.

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 141

Still more degenerate survivals are afforded by the Whitsun
feast at King's Teignton, also in Devonshire \ and by the
Whitsun ' lamb feast ' at Kidlington 2, the Trinity ' lamb
ale' at Kirtlington 3, and the 'Whit hunt' in Wychwood
Forest 4, all three places lying close together in Oxfordshire.
These five cases have been carefully recorded and studied ;
but they do not stand alone ; for the folk-calendar affords
numerous examples of days which are marked, either univer-
sally or locally, by the ceremonial hunting or killing of some
wild or domestic animal, or by the consumption of a parti-
cular dish which readily betrays its sacrificial origin 6. The
appearance of animals in ecclesiastical processions in St.
Paul's cathedral6 and at Bury St. Edmunds7 is especially
significant ; and it is natural to find an origin for the old
English sport of bull-baiting rather in a survival of heathen
ritual than in any reminiscence of the Roman amphitheatre 8.
Even where sacrifice itself has vanished, the minor rites
which once accompanied it are still perpetuated in the super-
stitions or the festival customs of the peasantry. The heads
and hides of horses or cattle, like the exuviae of the sacrificial
victims, are worn or carried in dance, procession or quite 9. The
dead bodies of animals are suspended by shepherds or game-
keepers upon tree and barn-door, from immemorial habit or from

1 xN.Q.vn. 353; Gomme, Einno- Sparrow Simpson, St. Paul's Cath.
logy, 30 5 Vaux, 285. and Old City Life, 234).

2 Blount, Jocular Tenures (ed. 7 F. L. iv. 9; x. 355. White
Beckwith), 281 ; Dyer, 297. bulls are said to have been led to

3 Dunkin, //z>/. of Bicester (1816), the shrine by women desirous of
268; P. Manning, in F. L. viii. 313. children. F. C. Conybeare, in R.

4 P. Manning, in F. L. viii. 310; de V Hist, des Religions, xliv. 108,
Dyer, 282. describes some survivals of sac-

5 N.W.Thomas, in F. L. xi. 227 ; rificial rites in the Armenian church
Dyer, 285, 438, 470 ; Ditchfield, which existed primitively in other
85, 131. Greek churches also.

6 Certain lands were held of the 8 F. L. vii. 346. Bull-baiting
chapter for which a fat buck was often took place on festivals, and
paid on the Conversion of St. Paul in several cases, as at Tutbury, the
(January 25), and a fat doe on bull was driven into or over a river,
the Commemoration of St. Paul Bear-baiting is possibly a later
(June 30). They were offered, ac- variant of the sport.

cording to one writer, alive, at the 9 Burton, 165 ; Suffolk F. L. 71 ;

high altar; the flesh was baked, the Ditchfield, 227 ; Dyer, 387 ; Pfan-

head and horns carried in festal nenschmidt, 279 ; cf. the Abbots

procession. The custom dated Bromley Horn-dance (ch. viii).
from at least 1274 (Dyer, 49 ; W.

142 FOLK DRAMA

some vague suspicion of the luck they will bring. Although
inquiry will perhaps elicit the fallacious explanation that
they are there pour enconrager les autres x. In the following
chapters an attempt will be made to show how widely
sacrifice is represented in popular amusements and ludi. Here
it will be sufficient to call attention to two personages who
figure largely in innumerable village festivals. One is the
' hobby-horse,' not yet, though Shakespeare will have it so,
1 forgot 2 ' : the other the ' fool ' or ' squire,' a buffoon with
a pendent cow's tail, who is in many places de rigueur in
Maying or rushbearing 3. Both of these grotesques seem to
be at bottom nothing but worshippers careering in the skins
of sacrificed animals.

The cereal or liquor sacrifice is of less importance. Sugar
and water, which may be conjectured to represent mead, is
occasionally drunk beside a sacred well, and in one instance,
at least, bread and cheese are thrown into the depths. Some-
times also a ploughman carries bread and cheese in his pocket
when he goes abroad to cut the first furrow4. But the original
rite is probably most nearly preserved in the custom of
'youling' fruit-trees to secure a good crop. When this is
done, at Christmas or Ascension-tide, ale or cider is poured
on the roots of the trees, and a cake placed in a fork of the
boughs. Here and there a cake is also hung on the horn of
an ox in the stall5. Doubtless the 'feasten' cake, of traditional

1 F. L. iv. 5. The custom of 'fool 'or 'squire' in the sword and
sacrifice at the foundation of a new morris dances, and ch. xvi on his
building has also left traces : cf. court and literary congener. The
Grant Allen, 248 ; F. L. xi. 322, folk-fool wears a cow's tail or fox's
437 ; Speth, Builders' Rites and brush, or carries a stick with a tail
Ceremonies. at one end and a bladder and peas

2 Douce, 598, gives a cut of a at the other. He often wears
hobby-horse, i.e. a man riding a a mask or has his face blacked,
pasteboard or wicker horse with In Lancashire he is sometimes
his legs concealed beneath a foot- merged with the 'woman' grotesque
cloth. According to Du Meril, of the folk-festivals, and called
Com. i. 79, 421, the device is known 'owd Bet.'

throughout Europe. In France it is 4 W. Gregor, F. L.of N. E. Scot-

the chevalet, cheval-mallet, cheval- /and, 181, says that bread and cheese

fol, &c. ; in Germany the Schim- were actually laid in the field, and

mel. in the plough when it was ' strykit.'

8 Dyer, 182, 266, 271; Ditch- 5 Dyer, 20, 207,447; Ditchfield,

field, 97 ; Burton, 40 ; F. L. viii. 46 ; F. L. vi. 93. Pirminius v.

3°9> 3l3> 317; cf. ch. ix on the Reichenau, Dicta{i 753), c. 22,

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 143

shape and composition, which pervades the country, is in its
origin sacramental \ Commonly enough, it represents an
animal or human being, and in such cases it may be held,
while retaining its own character of a cereal sacrifice, to be
also a substitute for the animal or human sacrifice with which
it should by rights be associated 2.

An unauthenticated and somewhat incredible story has
been brought from Italy to the effect that the moun-
taineers of the Abruzzi are still in the habit of offering
up a human sacrifice in Holy week 3. In these islands a
reminiscence of the observance is preserved in the 'victim'
of the Beltane festival4, and a transformation of it in the
whipping of lads when the bounds are beaten in the Roga-
tions 5. Some others, less obvious, will be suggested in the
sequel. In any case one ceremony which, as has been seen,
grew out of human sacrifice, has proved remarkably enduring.
This is the election of the temporary king. Originally chosen
out of the lowest of the people for death, and feted as the
equivalent or double of the real king-priest of the community,
he has survived the tragic event which gave him birth, and
plays a great part as the master of the ceremonies in many
a village revel. The English ' May-king,' or ' summer-king,'
or ' harvest-lord V or ' mock-mayor V is a very familiar
personage, and can be even more abundantly paralleled

forbids 'effundere super truncum sometimes includes burying them,

frugem et vinum.' closely resembles the symbolical

1 F. L. Congress, 449, gives a list sacrifices of the harvest field (p.
of about fifty 'feasten' cakes. 158). Grant Allen, 270, suggests
Some are quite local ; others, from that the tears shed are a rain-
the Shrove Tuesday pancake to charm. I hope he is joking.

the Good Friday hot cross bun, 6 Brand, ii. 13 ; Suffolk F. L. 69,

widespread. 71; Leicester F. L. 121. A 'har-

2 Grimm, i. 57 ; Frazer, ii. 344 ; vest-lord ' is probably meant by the
Grant Allen, 339; Jevons, 215; 'Rex Autumnalis' mentioned in
Dyer, 165 ; Ditchfield, 81. the Accounts of St. Michael's, Bath

3 F. L. vi. 57 ; viii. 354 ; ix. (ed. Somerset Arch. Soc. 88), in
362; x. in. 1487, 1490, and 1492. A corona

* F. L. vi. 1. was hired by him from the parish.

5 Ditchfield, 116, 227 ; Suffolk Often the reaper who cuts the last

F. L. 108 ; Dyer, Old English sheaf (i.e. slays the divinity) be-

Social Life, 197. The boys are comes harvest-lord.

now said to be whipped in order 7 Gomme, Village Community,

that they may remember the boun- 107 ; Dyer, 339 ; Northall, 202 ;

daries ; but the custom, which Gloucester F. L. 33.

144 FOLK DRAMA

from continental festivals1. To the May-king in particular
we shall return. But in concluding this chapter it is worth
while to point out and account for two variants of the custom
under consideration. In many cases, probably in the majority
of cases so far as the English May-day is concerned, the king
is not a king, but a queen. Often, indeed, the part is played
by a lad in woman's clothes, but this seems only to emphasize
the fact that the temporary ruler is traditionally regarded as
a female one2. It is probable that we have here no modern
development, but a primitive element in the agricultural
worship. Tacitus records the presence amongst the Germans
of a male priest ' adorned as women use 3,' while the exchange
of garments by the sexes is included amongst festival abuses
in the ecclesiastical discipline-books4. Occasionally, more-
over, the agricultural festivals, like those of the Bona Dea at
Rome, are strictly feminine functions, from which all men are
excluded 5. Naturally I regard these facts as supporting my
view of the origin of the agricultural worship in a women's
cult, upon which the pastoral cult of the men was afterwards
engrafted. And finally, there are cases in which not a king
alone nor a queen alone is found, but a king and a queen 6.
This also would be a reasonable outcome of the merging of
the two cults. Some districts know the May-queen as the
May-bride, and it is possible that a symbolical wedding of
a priest and priestess may have been one of the regular rites
of the summer festivals. For this there seem to be some
parallels in Greek and Roman custom, while the myth which

1 Frazer, i. 216; E. Pabst, Die in habitu muliebri et mulier in
Volksfeste des Maigrafen (1865). habitu viri emendatione pollicita

2 Frazer, i. 219; Cortet, 160; tres annos poeniteat.' The ex-
Brand, i. 126 ; Dyer, 266 ; Ditch- change of head-gear between men
field, 98. and women remains a familiar

3 Tacitus, Germ. c. 43 ' apud feature of the modern bank-
Nahanarvalos antiquae religionis holiday. Some Greek parallels are
lucus ostenditur. praesidet sacer- collected by Frazer, Pausanias, iii.
dos muliebri ornatu.' 197. E. Crawley, The Mystic Rose

4 Cone, of Trullo (692), c. 62 (1902), viii. 371, suggests another
(Mansi,xi.67i)'Nullus vir deinceps explanation, which would connect
muliebri veste induatur, vel mulier the custom with the amorous side
veste viro conveniente ' ; Cone, of of the primitive festivals.

Braga (of doubtful date), c. 80 6 Frazer, ii. 93, 109.

(Mansi, ix. 844) ' Si quis ballationes e Ibid. i. 220; Brand, i. t$7 ;

ante ecclesias sanctorum fecerit, seu Dyer, 217; Ditchfield, 97; Kelly,

quis faciem suam transformaverit 62 : cf. ch. viii.

VILLAGE FESTIVALS 145

represents the heaven as the fertilizing husband of the fruitful
earth is of hoar antiquity amongst the Aryan-speaking peoples.
The . forces which make for the fertility of the fields were
certainly identified in worship with those which make for
human fertility. The waters of the sacred well or the blaze
of the festival fire help the growth of the crops ; they also
help women in their desire for a lover and for motherhood.
And it may be taken for granted that the summer festivals
knew from the beginning that element of sexual licence which
fourteen centuries of Christianity have not wholly been able
to banish K

1 Pearson, ii. 24, 407. Cf. the evidence for a primitive human pairing-
season in Westermarck, 25.

CHAMBERS. I

CHAPTER VII
FESTIVAL PLAY

[Bibliographical Note. — A systematic revision of J. Strutt, The Sports
and Pastimes of the People of England (1801, ed. W. Hone, 1830), is, as
in the case of Brand's book, much needed. On the psychology of play
should be consulted K. Groos, Die Spiele der Thiere (1896, transl. 1898),
and Die Spiele der Menschen (1899, transl. 1901). Various anthropo-
logical aspects of play are discussed by A. C. Haddon, The Study of
Man (1898), and the elaborate dictionary of The Traditional Games of
England, Scotland and Ireland by Mrs. A. B. Gomme (1894-8) may
be supplemented from W. W. Newell, Games and Songs oj American
Children (1884), H. C. Bolton, The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children
(1888), E. W. B. Nicholson, Golspie (1897), and R. C. Maclagan, The
Games and Diversions of Argyleshire (F.L.S. 1901). The charivari
is treated by C. R. B. Barrett, Riding Skimmington and Riding the Stang
in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association, N. S. i. 58, and
C. Noirot, L'Origine des Masques (1609), reprinted with illustrative matter
by C. Leber, Dissertations relatives a PHistoire de France, vol. ix. The
account of the Coventry Hox Tuesday Play given in Robert Laneham's
Letter (1575) will be found in Appendix H.]

The charms, the prayer, the sacrifice, make up that side
of the agricultural festival which may properly be regarded
as cult : they do not make up the whole of it. It is
natural to ask whether, side by side with the observances of
a natural religion, there were any of a more spiritual type ;
whether the village gods of our Keltic and Teutonic ancestors
were approached on festival occasions solely as the givers
of the good things of earth, or whether there was also any
recognition of the higher character which in time they came
to have as the guardians of morality, such as we can trace
alike in the ritual of Eleusis and in the tribal mysteries of
some existing savage peoples. It is not improbable that
this was so ; but it may be doubted whether there is much
available evidence on the matter, and, in any case, it cannot
be gone into here1. There is, however, a third element of

1 Purity of life is sometimes required of those who are to kindle the
new fire (Frazer, iii. 260, 302).

FESTIVAL PLAY 147

the village festival which does demand consideration, and
that is the element of play. The day of sacrifice was also
a day of cessation from the ordinary toil of the fields, a
holiday as well as a holy day. Sacred and secular met in
the amorous encounters smiled upon by the liberal wood-
goddess, and in the sacramental banquet with its collops of
flesh and spilth of ale and mead. But the experience of any
bank holiday will show that, for those who labour, the
suspension of their ordinary avocations does not mean quies-
cence. When the blood is heated with love and liquor, the
nervous energies habitually devoted to wielding the goad
and guiding the plough must find vent in new and for the
nonce unprofitable activities. But such activities, self-suffi-
cing, and primarily at least serving no end beyond them-
selves, are, from pushpin to poetry, exactly what is meant
by play1.

The instinct of play found a foothold at the village feast
in the debris which ritual, in its gradual transformation, left
behind. It has already been noted as a constant feature in
the history of institutions that a survival does not always
remain merely a survival ; it may be its destiny, when it is
emptied of its first significance, to be taken up into a different
order of ideas, and to receive a new lease of vitality under
a fresh interpretation. Sacrifice ceases to be sacrament and
becomes oblation. Dipping and smoking customs, originally
magical, grow to be regarded as modes of sacrificial death.
Other such waifs of the past become the inheritance of
play. As the old conception of sacrifice passed into the
new one, the subsidiary rites, through which the sacramental
influence had of old been distributed over the worshippers
and their fields, although by no means disused, lost their
primitive meaning. Similarly, when human sacrifice was
abolished, that too left traces of itself, only imperfectly in-
telligible, in mock or symbolical deaths, or in the election
of the temporary king. Thus, even before Christianity anti-
quated the whole structure of the village festivals, there were
individual practices kept alive only by the conservatism of

1 H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, ii. 629 ; K. Groos, Play of
Man, 361 ; Hirn, 25.

l a

148 FOLK DRAMA

tradition, and available as material for the play instinct.
These find room in the festivals side by side with other
customs which the same instinct not only preserved but
initiated. Of course, the antithesis between play and cult
must not be pushed too far. The peasant mind is tenacious of
acts and forgetful of explanations ; and the chapters to come
will afford examples of practices which, though they began
in play, came in time to have a serious significance of quasi-
ritual, and to share in the popular imagination the prestige
as fertility charms of the older ceremonies of worship with
which they were associated. The ludi to be immediately
discussed, however, present themselves in the main as sheer
play. Several of them have broken loose from the festivals
altogether, or, if they still acknowledge their origin by making
a special appearance on some fixed day, are also at the
service of ordinary amusement, whenever the leisure or the
whim of youth may so suggest.

To begin with, it is possible that athletic sports and horse-
racing are largely an outcome of sacrificial festivals. Like
the Greeks around the pyre of Patroclus, the Teutons cele-
brated games at the tombs of their dead chieftains1. But
games were a feature of seasonal, no less than funeral feasts.
It will be remembered that the council of Clovesho took pains
to forbid the keeping of the Rogation days with horse-races.
A bit of wrestling or a bout of quarter-staff is still de rigueur
at many a wake or rushbearing, while in parts of Germany
the winner of a race or of a shooting-match at the popinjay is
entitled to light the festival fire, or to hold the desired office of
May-king 2. The reforming bishops of the thirteenth century
include public wrestling-bouts and contests for prizes amongst
the ludi whose performance they condemn ; and they lay
particular stress upon a custom described as arietum super
ligna et rotas elevationes. The object of these ' ram-raisings '
seems to be explained by the fact that in the days of Chaucer
a ram was the traditional reward proposed for a successful
wrestler3; and this perhaps enables us to push the connexion

1 Gummere, G. O. 331. (C. T. prol. 548) :

2 Frazer, i. 217 ; iii. 258. 'At wrastlynge he wolde have

3 Chaucer says of the Miller alwey the ram ' ;

FESTIVAL PLAY 149

with the sacrificial rite a little further. I would suggest that
the original object of the man who wrestled for a ram, or
climbed a greasy pole for a leg of mutton, or shot for a popin-
jay, was to win a sacrificial victim or a capital portion thereof,
which buried in his field might bring him abundant crops.
The orderly competition doubtless evolved itself from such an
indiscriminate scrimmage for the fertilizing fragments as marks
the rites of the earth-goddess in the Indian village feast K
Tug-of-war would seem to be capable of a similar explana-
tion, though here the desired object is not a portion of the
victim, but rather a straw rope made out of the corn divinity
itself in the form of the harvest- May2. An even closer
analogy with the Indian rite is afforded by such games as
hockey and football. The ball is nothing else than the head
of the sacrificial beast, and it is the endeavour of each player
to get it into his own possession, or, if sides are taken, to get
it over a particular boundary3. Originally, of course, this
was the player's own boundary ; it has come to be regarded
as that of his opponents ; but this inversion of the point of
view is not one on which much stress can be laid. In proof
of this theory it may be pointed out that in many places
football is still played, traditionally, on certain days of the
year. The most notable example is perhaps at Dorking,
where the annual Shrove Tuesday scrimmage in the streets

and of Sir Thopas (C. T. 13670) : games, in which the ball is fought

' Of wrastlynge was ther noon his for, are distinct from those already

peer, mentioned as having a ceremonial

Ther any ram shal stonde.' use, in which it is amicably tossed

Strutt, 82, figures a wrestling from from player to player (cf. p. 128).

Royal MS. 2, B. viii, with a cock If Golf belongs to the present

set on a pole as the prize. category, it is a case in which the

1 Cf. Appendix I., and Frazer, ii. endeavour seems to be actually to
316 ; Jevons, Plutarch, lxix. 143, on bury the ball. It is tempting to
the struggle between two wards — compare the name Hockey with the
the Sacred Way and the Subura — Hock-cart of the harvest festival,
for the head of the October Horse and with Hock-tide ; but it does not
at Rome. really seem to be anything but

2 Haddon, 270. The tug-of-war Hookey. The original of both the
reappears in Korea and Japan as hockey-stick and the golf-club was
a ceremony intended to secure a probably the shepherd's crook,
good harvest. Mr. Pepys tried to cast stones with

3 Mrs. Gomme, s. vv. Bandy- a shepherd's crook on those very
ball, Camp, Football, Hockey, Epsom downs where the stock-
Hood, Hurling, Shinty. These broker now foozles bis tee shot.

150 FOLK DRAMA

of the town and the annual efforts of the local authorities to
suppress it furnish their regular paragraph to the newspapers.
There are several others, in most of which, as at Dorking,
the contest is between two wards or districts of the town l.
This feature is repeated in the Shrove Tuesday tug-of-war
at Ludlow, and in annual faction-fights elsewhere 2. It is
probably due to that o-woikkt/xo's of village communities by
which towns often came into being. Here and there, more-
over, there are to be found rude forms of football in which
the primitive character of the proceeding is far more evident
than in the sophisticated game. Two of these deserve espe-
cial mention. At Hallaton in Leicestershire a feast is held
on Easter Monday at a piece of high ground called Hare-pie
Bank: A hare — the sacrificial character of the hare has
already been dwelt upon — is carried in procession. ' Hare-
pies ' are scrambled for ; and then follows a sport known as
' bottle-kicking.' Hooped wooden field-bottles are thrown
down and a scrimmage ensues between the men of Hallaton
and the men of the adjoining village of Medbourne. Besides
the connexion with the hare sacrifice, it is noticeable that
each party tries to drive the bottle towards its own boundary,
and not that of its opponents 3. More interesting still is the
Epiphany struggle for the ' Haxey hood ' at Haxey in
Lincolnshire. The ' hood ' is a roll of sacking or leather, and
it is the object of each of the players to carry it to a public-
house in his own village. The ceremony is connected with
the Plough Monday quite, and the ' plough-bullocks ' or
' boggons ' led by their ' lord duke ' and their ' fool,' known
as ' Billy Buck,' are the presiding officials. On the following
day a festival-fire is lit, over which the fool is ' smoked.'

1 F. L. vii. 345 ; M. Shearman, annual Shrove Tuesday football on

Athletics and Football, 246 ; Had- the Roodee was commuted for races

don, 271; Gomme, Vill. Comm. in 1540 {Hist. MSS. viii. 1. 362).

240; Ditchfield, 57, 64; W. Fitz- At Dublin there was, in 1569, a

Stephen, Vita S. Thomae (t 11 70- Shrove Tuesday 'riding' of the

82) in Mat. for Hist, of Becket ' occupacions' each 'bearing balles'

(R. S.), iii. 9, speaks of the 'lusum (Gilbert, ii. 54).

pilae celebrem ' in London 'die 2 Haddon, loc. cit. ; Gomme, loc.

quae dicitur Carnilevaria.' Riley, cit. ; Gloucester F. L. 38. Cf. the

571, has a London proclamation conflictus described in ch. ix, and

of 1409 forbidding the levy of the classical parallels in Frazer,

money for 'foteballe' and 'cok- Pausanias, iii. 267.

thresshyng.' At Chester the s F.L. iii. 441 ; Ditchfield, 85.

FESTIVAL PLAY 151

The strongest support is given to my theory of the origin
of this type of game, by an extraordinary speech which the
fool delivers from the steps of an old cross. As usual, the
cross has taken the place of a more primitive tree or shrine.
The speech runs as follows : ' Now, good folks, this is Haxa'
Hood. We've killed two bullocks and a half, but the other
half we had to leave running field: we can fetch it if it's
wanted. Remember it's

1 Hoose agin hoose, toon agin toon,
And if you meet a man, knock him doon.'

In this case then, the popular memory has actually preserved
the tradition that the ' hood' or ball played with is the half of
a bullock, the head that is to say, of the victim decapitated
at a sacrifice x.

Hockey and football and tug-of-war are lusty male sports,
but the sacrificial survival recurs in some of the singing games
played by girls and children. The most interesting of these
is that known as ' Oranges and Lemons.' An arch is formed
by two children with raised hands, and under this the rest
of the players pass. Meanwhile rhymes are sung naming
the bells of various parishes, and ending with some such
formula as

' Here comes a chopper to chop off your head :
The last, last, last, last man's head.'

As the last word is sung, the hands forming the arch are
lowered, and the child who is then passing is caught, and falls
in behind one of the leaders. When all in turn have been
so caught, a tug-of-war, only without a rope, follows. The
' chopping ' obviously suggests a sacrifice, in this case a human
sacrifice. And the bell-rhymes show the connexion of the
game with the parish contests just described. There exists
indeed a precisely similar set of verses which has the title,
Song of the Bells of Derby on Football Morning. The set
ordinarily used in 'Oranges and Lemons' names London

1 F. L. vii. 330 (a very full ac- hood on a windy day, and instituted

count); viii. 72, 173; Uitchfield, the contest in memory of the

50. There is a local aetiological event,
myth about a lady who lost her

152 FOLK DRAMA

parishes, but here is a Northamptonshire variant, which is
particularly valuable because it alludes to another rite of the
agricultural festival, the sacramental cake buried in a furrow :

1 Pancakes and fritters,
Says the bells of St. Peter's :
Where must we fry 'em ?
Says the bells of Cold Higham :
In yonder land thurrow (furrow)
Says the bells of Wellingborough, &c. x

Other games of the same type are ' How many Miles to
Babylon,' 'Through the Needle Eye,' and 'Tower of London.'
These add an important incident to 'Oranges and Lemons,' in
that a ' king ' is said to be passing through the arch. On the
other hand, some of them omit the tug-of-war2. With all
these singing games it is a little difficult to say whether
they proceed from children's imitations of the more serious
proceedings pf their elders, or whether they were originally
played at the festivals by grown men and maidens, and have
gradually, like the May quite itself, fallen into the children's
hands. The ' Oranges and Lemons ' group has its analogy to
the tug-of-war; the use of the arch formation also connects
it with the festival ' country ' dances which will be mentioned
in the next chapter.

The rude punishments by which the far from rigid code
of village ethics vindicates itself against offenders, are on
the border line between play and jurisprudence. These also
appear to be in some cases survivals, diverted from their
proper context, of festival usage. It has been pointed out
that the ducking which was a form of rain-charm came to be
used as a penalty for the churlish or dispirited person, who
declined to throw up his work or to wear green on the festival
day. In other places this same person has to ' ride the stang.'
That is to say, he is set astride a pole and borne about with
contumely, until he compounds for his misdemeanour by
a fine in coin or liquor 3. ' Riding the stang,' however, is

1 Mrs. Gomme, s.v. Oranges and word, of Scandinavian origin, for
Lemons. 'pole' or 'stake.' The Scandina-

2 Mrs. Gomme, s. vv. vian nift-stong (scorn-stake) was a
* Dyer, 6, 481. 'Stang' is a horse's head on a pole, with a written

FESTIVAL PLAY 153

a rural punishment of somewhat wide application1. It is
common to England and to France, where it can be traced
back, under the names of charivari and chevauche'e, to the
fifteenth century2. The French sociith joyeuses, which will
be described in a later chapter, made liberal use of it 3. The
offences to which it is appropriate are various. A miser, a
henpecked husband or a wife-beater, especially in May, and,
on the other hand, a shrew or an unchaste woman, are liable
to visitation, as are the parties to a second or third marriage,
or to one perilously long delayed, or one linking May to
December. The precise ceremonial varies considerably.
Sometimes the victim has to ride on a pole, sometimes on a
hobby-horse 4, or on an ass with his face turned to the tail 5.
Sometimes, again, he does not appear at all, but is repre-
sented by an effigy or guy, or, in France, by his next-door
neighbour6. This dramatic version is, according to Mr. Barrett,
properly called a 'skimmington riding,' while the term
'riding the stang' is reserved for that in which the offender
figures in person. The din of kettles, bones, and cleavers, so
frequent an element in rustic ceremonies, is found here also,

curse and a likeness of the man to et manibus sibilatione, instrumento

be ill-wished (Vigfusson, Icel. Diet, aeruginariorum, sive fabricantium,

s.v. n$). et aliarum rerum sonorosarum,

1 Cf. with Mr. Barrett's account, vociferationibus tumultuosis et aliis

Northall, 253; Ditchfield, 178; ludibriis et irrisionibus, in illo

Northern F. L. 29 ; Julleville, Les damnabili actu (qui cariuarium,

Com. 205 ; also Thomas Hardy's vulgariter charivari, nuncupatur)

Mayor of Casterbridge, and his The circa domos nubentium, et in ipso-

Fire at Tranter Sweatley's ( Wessex rum detestationem et opprobrium

Poems, 201). The penalty is used post eorum secundas nuptias fieri

by schoolboys {Northern F. L. 29) consuetum, &c.'

as well as villagers. s Cf. ch. xvi, and Leber, ix. 148,

s Grenier, 375; Ducange, s.v. 169; Julleville, Les Com. 205, 243.

Charivarium, which he defines as In 1579 a regular jeu was made

' ludus turpis tinnitibus et clamori- by the Dijon Mlre-Folle of the che-

bus variis, quibus illudunt iis, qui ad vauchie of one M. Du Tillet. The

secundas convolant nuptias.' He text is preserved in Bid/. Nat. MS.

refers to the statutes of Melun 24039 and analysed by M. Petit de

cathedral (1365) in Instrumenta Julleville.

Hist. Feci. Melud. ii. 503. Cf. * In Berks a draped horse's head

Cone, of Langres (1404) 'ludo quod is carried, and the proceeding

dicitur Chareuari, in quo utuntur known as a Hooset Hunt (Ditch-

larvis in figura daemonum, et hor- field, 178).

renda ibidem committuntur '; Cone. 6 Ducange, s.v. Asini caudam

of Angers (1448), c. 12 (Labbe", xiii. in manu tenens.

1358) ' pulsatione patellarum, pel- 6 Julleville, Les Com. 207.
vium et campanarum, eorum oris

154 FOLK DRAMA

and in one locality at least the attendants are accustomed to
blacken their faces l. It may perhaps be taken for granted that
' riding the stang ' is an earlier form of the punishment than
the more delicate and symbolical 'skimmington riding'; and
it is probable that the rider represents a primitive village
criminal haled off to become the literal victim at a sacrificial
rite. The fine or forfeit by which in some cases the offence
can be purged seems to create an analogy between the
custom under consideration and other sacrificial survivals
which must now be considered. These are perhaps best
treated in connexion with Hock-tide and the curious play
proper to that festival at Coventry 2. This play was revived
for the entertainment of Elizabeth when she visited the Earl
of Leicester at Kenilworth in July, 1575, and there exists a de-
scription of it in a letter written by one Robert Laneham, who
accompanied the court, to a friend in London 3. The men of
Coventry, led by one Captain Cox, who presented it called
it an ' olid storiall sheaw,' with for argument the massacre
of the Danes by Ethelred on Saint Brice's night 100a4.
Laneham says that it was ' expressed in actionz and rymez,'
and it appears from his account to have been a kind of sham
fight or ' barriers ' between two parties representing respec-
tively Danish ' launsknights ' and English, ' each with allder
poll marcially in their hand V In the end the Danes were
defeated and l many led captiue for triumph by our English
wdemen.' The presenters also stated that the play was of
' an auncient beginning ' and ' woont too bee plaid in oour
Citee yearely.' Of late, however, it had been ' laid dooun,'
owing to the importunity of their preachers, and ( they
woold make theyr humbl peticion vntoo her highnes, that
they myght haue theyr playz vp agayn.' The records of

1 So on Ikhester Meads, where 4 Laneham, or his informant, ac-
the proceeding is known as Mom- tually said, in error, 1012. On the
mets or Mommicks (Barrett, 65). historical event see Ramsay, i. 353.

2 On Hock-tide and the Hock- B There were performers both on
play generally see Brand-Ellis, i. horse and on foot. Probably hobby-
107; Strutt, 349; Sharpe, 125; horses were used, for Jonson brings
Dyer, 188 ; S. Denne, Memoir on in Captain Cox ' in his Hobby-
Hokeday in Archaeologia, vii. 244. horse,' which was ' foaled in Queen

3 Cf. Appendix H. An allusion Elizabeth's time' in the Masque of
to the play by Sir R. Morrison Owls (ed. Cunningham, iii. 188).
(11542) is quoted in chap. xxv.

FESTIVAL PLAY 155

Coventry itself add but little to what Laneham gathered.
The local Annals, not a very trustworthy chronicle, ascribe
the invention of ' Hox Tuesday' to 1416-7, and perhaps
confirm the Letter by noting that in 1575-6 the 'pageants
on Hox Tuesday ' were played after eight years l. We have
seen that, according to the statement made at Kenilworth,
the event commemorated by the performance was the Danish
massacre of 1002. There was, however, another tradition,
preserved by the fifteenth-century writer John Rous, which
connected it rather with the sudden death of Hardicanute
and the end of the Danish usurpation at the accession of
Edward the Confessor2. It is, of course, possible that local
cantilenae on either or both of these events may have existed,
and may have been worked into the 'rymez' of the play.
But I think it may be taken for granted that, as in the
Lady Godiva procession, the historical element is com-
paratively a late one, which has been grafted upon already
existing festival customs. One of these is perhaps the
faction-fight just discussed. But it is to be noticed that
the performance as described by Laneham ended with the
Danes being led away captive by English women ; and this
episode seems to be clearly a dramatization of a characteristic
Hock-tide Indus found in many places other than Coventry.
On Hock-Monday, the women ' hocked ' the men ; that is to
say, they went abroad with ropes, caught and bound any man
they came across, and exacted a forfeit. On Hock-Tuesday,
the men retaliated in similar fashion upon the women.
Bishop Carpenter of Worcester forbade this practice in his
diocese in 1450 3, but like some other festival customs it came

1 Cf. Representations, s. v. Coven- plays proposed for municipal per-

try. formance in 1591 were the ' Con-

3 Rossius, Hist. Regum Angliae quest of the Danes 'and the 'History

(ed. Hearne, 1716), 105 'in cuius of Edward the Confessor.' These

signum usque hodie ilia die vul- were to be upon the ' pagens,' and

gariter dicta Hox Tuisday ludunt probably they were more regular

in villis trahendo cordas partialiter dramas than the performance wit-

cum aliis iocis.' Rous, who died nessed by Elizabeth in 1575 (Repre-

1491, is speaking of the death of sentation s, s. v. Coventry). »

Hardicanute. On the event see s Leland, Cot/ectanea(ed. Hearne),

Ramsay, i. 434. Possibly both events v. 298 'uno certo die heu usitato

were celebrated in the sixteenth cen- (forsan Hoc vocitato) hoc solempni

tury at Coventry. Two of the three festo paschatis transacto, mulieres

156 FOLK DRAMA

to be recognized as a source of parochial revenue, and the
'gaderyngs' at Hock-tide, of which the women's was always
the most productive, figure in many a churchwarden's budget
well into the seventeenth century1. At Shrewsbury in 1549
* hocking ' led to a tragedy. Two men were ' smothered under
the Castle hill/ hiding themselves from maids, the hill falling
there on them V ' Hockney day ' is still kept at Hungerford,
and amongst the old-fashioned officers elected on this occa-
sion, with the hay-ward and the ale-tasters, are the two
' tything men ' or ' tutti men,' somewhat doubtfully said to be
so named from their poles wreathed with 'tutties' or nose-
gays, whose function it is to visit the commoners, and to claim
from every man a coin and from every woman a kiss 3. The
derivation of the term Hock-tide has given rise to some wild
conjectures, and philologists have failed to come to a con-
clusion on the subject * Hock-tide is properly the Monday
and Tuesday following the Second Sunday after Easter, and
' Hokedaie ' or Quindena Paschae is a frequent term day in
leases and other legal documents from the thirteenth century
onwards 5.

' Hocking ' can be closely paralleled from other customs of
the spring festivals. The household books of Edward I
record in 1290 a payment 'to seven ladies of the queen's
chamber who took the king in bed on the morrow of Easter,
and made him fine himself6.' This was the prisio which at
a later date perturbed the peace of French ecclesiastics.
The council of Nantes, for instance, in 1431, complains that
clergy were hurried out of their beds on Easter Monday,
dragged into church, and sprinkled with water upon the
altar 7. In this aggravated form the prisio hardly survived

homines, alioque die homines mu- ing ; Hobhouse, 232 ; N.E. D. s. w.

lieres ligare, ac cetera media utinam Hock, &c.

non inhonesta vel deteriora facere 2 Owen and Blakeway, Hist, of

moliantur et exercere, lucrum Shrewsbury, i. 559.
ecclesiae fingentes, set dampnum 3 Dyer, 191 ; Ditchfield, 90.

animae sub fucato colore lucrantes, * N. E. D. s. v. Hock-day.

&c.' Riley, 561, 571, gives London B Brand-Ellis, i. 106.

proclamations against 'hokkyng' of G Ibid. i. 109.
1405 and 1409. 7 Ducange, s. v. Prisio ; Bar-

1 Brand-Ellis, i. 113; Lysons, the"lemy,iv.463. On Innocents' Day,

Environs of London, i. 229 ; C. the customs of taking in bed and

Kerry, Accts. oj rSt. Lawrence, Read- whipping were united (cf. ch. xii).

FESTIVAL PLAY 157

the frank manners of the Middle Ages. But it was essentially
identical with the ceremonies in which a more modern usage
has permitted the levying of forfeits at both Pasque and Pen-
tecost. In the north of England, women were liable to have
their shoes taken on one or other of these feasts, and must
redeem them by payment. On the following day they were
entitled to retaliate on the shoes of the men 1. A more widely
spread method of exacting the droit is that of ' heaving.'
The unwary wanderer in some of the northern manufactur-
ing towns on Easter Monday is still liable to find himself
swung high in the air by the stalwart hands of factory girls,
and will be lucky if he can purchase his liberty with nothing
more costly than a kiss. If he likes, he may take his revenge
on Easter Tuesday 2. Another mediaeval custom described by
Belethus in the twelfth century, which prescribed the whip-
ping of husbands by wives on Easter Monday and of wives
by husbands on Easter Tuesday, has also its modern parallel 3.
On Shrove Tuesday a hockey match was played at Leicester,
and after it a number of young men took their stand with
cart whips in the precincts of the Castle. Any passer-by who
did not pay a forfeit was liable to lashes. The ' whipping
Toms/ as they were called, were put down by a special Act of
Parliament in 1 847 4. The analogy of these customs with
the requirement made of visitors to certain markets or to
the roofs of houses in the building to ' pay their footing ' is
obvious 6.

In all these cases, even where the significant whipping or
sprinkling is absent, the meaning is the same. The binding
with ropes, the loss of the shoes, the lifting in the air, are

1 Northern F. L. 84 ; Brand-Ellis, 3 Belethus, c. 120 ' notandum
i. 94, 96 ; Vaux, 242 ; Ditchfield, 80 ; quoque est in plerisque regionibus
Dyer, 133. secundo die post Pascha mulieres

2 Brand-Ellis, i. 106 ; Owen and maritos suos verberare ac vicissim
Blakeway, i. 559; Dyer, 173 ; Ditch- viros eas tertio die.' The spiritually
field, 90; Burne - Jackson, 336; minded Belethus explains the custom
Northern F. L. 84 ; Vaux, 242. as a warning to keep from carnal
A dignified H. M. I. is said to have intercourse.

made his first official visit to War- * Dyer, 79 ; Ditchfield, 83.

rington on Easter Monday, and to 8 Brand-Ellis, i. 114; Ditchfield,

have suffered accordingly. Miss 252. Mr. W. Crooke has just studied

Burne describes sprinkling as an this and analogous customs in The

element in Shropshire heaving. Lifting of the Bride (F.L. xiii. 226).

158 FOLK DRAMA

symbols of capture. And the capture is for the purposes of
sacrifice, for which no more suitable victim, in substitution for
the priest-king, than a stranger, could be found. This will,
I think, be clear by comparison with some further parallels
from the harvest field and the threshing-floor, in more than
one of which the symbolism is such as actually to indicate
the sacrifice itself, as well as the preliminary capture. In
many parts of England a stranger, and sometimes even the
farmer himself, when visiting a harvest field, is liable to be
asked for ' largess ' l. In Scotland, the tribute is called
' head-money,' and he who refuses is seized by the arms and
feet and ' dumped ' on the ground 2. Similar customs prevail
on the continent, in Germany, Norway, France ; and the
stranger is often, just as in the ' hocking ' ceremony, caught
with straw ropes, or swathed in a sheaf of corn. It is mainly
in Germany that the still more elaborate rites survive. In
various districts of Mecklenburg, and of Pomerania, the
reapers form a ring round the stranger, and fiercely whet
their scythes, sometimes with traditional rhymest which con^
tain a threat to mow him down. In Schleswig, and again
in Sweden, the stranger in a threshing-floor is 'taught
the flail-dance ' or ' the threshing-song.' The arms of a
flail are put round his neck and pressed so tightly that he
is nearly choked. When the madder-roots are being dug,
a stranger passing the field is caught by the workers, and
buried up to his middle in the soil 3.

The central incident of ' hocking ' appears therefore to be
nothing but a form of that symbolical capture of a human
victim of which various other examples are afforded by the
village festivals. The development of the custom into a play
or mock-fight at Coventry may very well have taken place,
as the town annals say, about the beginning of the fifteenth
century. Whether it had previously been connected by local
tradition with some event in the struggles of Danes and Saxons
or not, is a question which one must be content to leave

1 Suffolk F. L. 69 ; F. L. v. 167. to Lancashire gyst-ales (Dyer, 182).

The use of largess, a Norman- 2 Ditchfield, 155.

French word (largitio), is curious. s Frazer, ii. 233 ; Pfannenschmidt,

It is also used for the subscriptions 93.

FESTIVAL PLAY 159

unsolved. A final word is due to the curious arrangement
by which in the group of customs here considered the r61es
of sacrificers and sacrificed are exchanged between men and
women on the second day ; for it lends support to the theory
already put forward that a certain stage in the evolution of
the village worship was marked by the merging of previously
independent sex-cults.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MAY-GAME

[Bibliographical Note. — The festal character of primitive dance and
song is admirably brought out by R. WallascheK, Primitive Music (1893) ;
E. Grosse, Die Anfdnge der Kunst (1894, French transl. 1902) ; Y. Hirn,
The Origins of Art (1900) ; F. B. Gummere, The Beginnings of Poetry
(1901). The popular element in French lyric is illustrated^by A. Jeanroy,
Les Origines de la Podsie lyrique en France au Moyen Age (1889), and
J. Tiersot, Histoire de la Chanson populaire en France (1889). Most
of such English material as exists is collected in Mrs. Gomme's Traditional
Games (1896-8) and G. F. NorthalJ, English Folk-Rhymes (1892). For
comparative study E. Martinengo-Cesaresco, Essays in the Study of Folk-
songs (1886), may be consulted. The notices of the May-game are
scattered through the works mentioned in the bibliographical note to
ch. vi and others.]

THE foregoing chapter has illustrated the remarkable variety
of modes in which the instinct of play comes to find expres-
sion. But of all such the simplest and most primitive is un-
doubtedly the dance. Psychology discovers in the dance the
most rudimentary and physical of the arts, and traces it to
precisely that overflow of nervous energies shut off from their
normal practical ends which constitutes play1. And the
verdict of psychology is confirmed by philology ; for in all the
Germanic languages the same word signifies both 'dance ' and
'play,' and in some of them it is even extended to the cognate
ideas of ' sacrifice ' or ' festival 2.' The dance must therefore

1 Haddon, 335; Grosse, 167; Tanz,Gesang,Opfer,Aufzug.' From

Herbert Spencer in Contemp. Re- the same root come probably ludus,

view (1895), 114; Groos, Play of and possibly, through the Celtic,

Man, 88, 354. Evidence for the the O. F. lai. The A.-S. Idc is

wide use of the dance at savage glossed ludus, sacrificium, victimat

festivals is given by Wallaschek, munus. It occurs in the compounds

163, 187. ecga-geldc and sveorda-geldc, both

' Grimm, i. 39 ; Pearson, ii. 133 ; meaning ' sword - dance,' sige-ldc,

Mu\\znh.off,Germania, ch. 24,andd<? 'victory-dance,' as-ldc, ' god-dance,'

antiq. Germ, poesi chorica, 4; Kdgel, wine-ldc, ' love-dance ' (cf. p. 170),

i. 1. 8. The primitive word form &c. An A.-S. synonym for Idc is

should have been laikaz, whence plega, ' play,' which gives sweord-

Gothic laiks, O. N. leikr, O. H. G. plega and ecg-plega. Spil is not

leih, A.-S. Idc. The word has, says A.-S. and spilian is a loan-word

Miillenhoff, all the senses ' Spiel, from O. H. G.

THE MAY-GAME

161

be thought of as an essential part of all the festivals with which
we have to deal. And with the dance comes song : the
rhythms of motion seem to have been invariably accompanied
by the rhythms of musical instruments, or of the voice, or of
both combined l.

The dance had been from the beginning a subject of conten-
tion between Christianity and the Roman world 2 ; but where-
as the dances of the East and South, so obnoxious to the
early Fathers, were mainly those of professional entertainers,
upon the stage or at banquets, the missionaries of the West
had to face the even more difficult problem of a folk-dance
and folk-song which were amongst the most inveterate habits
of the freshly converted peoples. As the old worship vanished,
these tended to attach themselves to the new. Upon great
feasts and wake-days, choruses of women invaded with wanton
cantica and ballationes the precincts of the churches and even
the sacred buildings themselves, a desecration against which
generation after generation of ecclesiastical authorities was
fain to protest 3. Clerkly sentiment in the matter is repre-

1 Gummere, B. P. 328 ; Kogel, i. pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrili-
1. 6.

3 S. Ambrose, de Elia et Ieiunio,
c. 18 (P. L. xiv. 720), de Poeni-
tentia, ii.' 6 (P. L. xvi. 508) ; S. Au-
gustine, contra Parmenianum, iii.
6 (P. L. xliii. 107) ; S. Chrysostom,
Horn. 47 in Julian, mart. p. 613;
Horn. 23 de Novilun. p. 264 ; C. of
Laodicea (t366), c. 53 (Mansi, ii.
571). Cf. B.C. A. s. v. Dancing,
and ch. i. Barthelemy, ii. 438, and
other writers have some rather
doubtful theories as to liturgical
dancing in early Christian worship ;
cf. Julian. Diet. 0/ Hymn. 206.

3 Du Menl, Com. 67 ; Pearson,
ii. 17, 281; Grober, ii. 1. 444;
Kogel, i. 1. 25 ; Indiculus Super-
stitionum (ed. Saupe), 10 'de sacri-
legiis per ecclesias.' Amongst the
prohibitions are Caesarius of Aries
(t542),.SVr,w0xiii (P. L. xxxix. 2325)
' quam multi rustici et quam multae
mulieres rusticanae cantica dia-
bolica, amatoria et turpia memoriter
retinent et ore decantant ' ; Const.
Childeberti (c. 554) de abol. relig.
idololatriae (Mansi, ix. 738) ' noctes

CHAMBERS. I J^J

tate, vel canticis, etiam in ipsis
sacris diebus, pascha, natale Do-
mini, et reliquis festivitatibus, vel
adveniente die Dominico dansa-
trices per villas ambulare . . .
nullatenus fieri permittimus ' \ C.of
Auxerre (573-603), c. 9 (Maassen,
i. 180) ' non licet in ecclesia choros
secularium vel puellarum cantica
exercere nee convivia in ecclesia
praeparare'; C. of Chalons (639-
54), c. 19 (Maassen, i. 212) 'Valde
omnibus noscetur esse decretum,
ne per dedicationes basilicarum
aut festivitates martyrum ad ipsa
solemnia confluentes obscoena et
turpia cantica, dum orare debent
aut clericos psallentes audire, cum
choris foemineis, turpia quidem
decantare videantur. unde con-
venit, ut sacerdotes loci illos a
septa basilicarum vel porticus ip-
sarum basilicarum etiam et ab
ipsis atriis vetare debeant et ar-
cere.' Sermo Eligii (Grimm, iv.
1737) ' nullus in festivitate S. Ioan-
nis vel quibuslibet sanctorum
solemnitatibus solstitia aut valla-

162

FOLK DRAMA

sented by a pious legend, very popular in the Middle Ages,
which told how some reprobate folk of Kolbigk in Anhalt
disobeyed the command of a priest to cease their unholy
revels before the church of Saint Magnus while he said mass
on Christmas day, and for their punishment must dance there
the year round without stopping \ The struggle was a long
one, and in the end the Church never quite succeeded even in
expelling the dance from its own doors. The chapter of
Wells about 1338 forbade choreae and other ludi within the
cathedral and the cloisters, chiefly on account of the damage

tiones vel saltationes aut caraulas
aut cantica diabolica exerceat ' ;
Judicium dementis (t 693), c. 20
(Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 226) ' si quis
in quacunque festivitate ad eccle-
siam veniens pallat foris, aut sal-
tat, aut cantat orationes amatorias
. . . excommunicetur ' (apparently
a fragment of a penitential com-
posed by Clement or Willibrord,
an A.-S. missionary to Frisia, on
whom see Bede, H. E. v. 9, and
the only dance prohibition of pos-
sible A.-S. provenance of which I
know); Statuta Salisburensia (Sah-
burg: t 800; Boretius, i. 229) 'Ut
omnis populus . . . absque inlece-
broso canticu et lusu saeculari cum
laetaniis procedant'; C. of Mainz
(81 3), c. 48 (Mansi, xiv. 74) 'canticum
turpe atque luxuriosum circa eccle-
sias agere omnino contradicimus ' ;
C. of Rome (826), c. 35 (Mansi, xiv.
1008) 'sunt quidam, et maxime
mulieres, qui festis ac sacris diebus
atque sanctorum natalitiis non pro
eorum quibus debent delectantur de-
sideriis advenire, sed ballando, verba
turpia decantando, choros tenendoac
ducendo, similitudinem paganorum
peragendo, advenire procurant ' ;
cf. Dicta abbatis Pirminii (Caspari,
Kirchenliistorische Anecdota, 1 88) ;
Penitentiale pseudo- Theodorianum

denunciations of the Kalends (ch.
xi and Appendix N). Nearly four
centuries after the C. of Rome we
find the C. of Avignon (1209), c. 17
(Mansi, xxii. 791) ' statuimus, ut in
sanctorum vigiliis in ecclesiis his-
toricae saltationes, obscoeni motus,
seu choreae non fiant, nee dicantur
amatoria carmina, vel cantilenae
ibidem . . .' Still later the C. of
Bayeux (1300), c. 31 (Mansi, xxv.
66) ' ut dicit Augustinus, melius est
festivis diebus fodere vel arare,
quam choreas ducere ' ; and so on
ad infinitum. The pseudo-Augus-
tine Sermo, 265, de Christiano
nojnine cu?n operibus non Christi-
anis (P. L. xxxix. 2237), which is
possibly by Caesarius of Aries,
asserts explicitly the pagan charac-
ter of the custom : ' isti enim
infelices et miseri homines, qui
balationes et saltationes ante ipsas
basilicas sanctorum exercere non
metuunt nee erubescunt, etsi
Christiani ad ecclesiam venerint,
pagani de ecclesia revertuntur ;
quia ista consuetudo balandi de
paganorum observatione remansit.'
A mediaeval preacher (quoted by A.
Lecoy de la Marche, Chair e fran-
caise au Moyen Age, 447, from
B. N. Lat. MS. "17509, f. 146)
declares, ' chorea enim circulus est

(Wasserschleben, 607) ; Leonis IV cuius centrum est diabolus,etomnes
Homilia (847, Mansi, xiv. 895); vergunt ad sinistrum.'

Benedictus Levita, Capitularia
(t85o), vi. 96 (M. G. H. Script, iv.
2) ; and for Spain, C. of Toledo
(589), c. 23 (Mansi, be. 999), and
the undated C. of Braga, c. 80
(quoted on p. 144). Cf. also the

1 Tille, D. W. 301 ; G. Raynaud,
in Etudes de'die'es a Gaston Paris,
53 ; E. Schroder, Die Tanzer von
Kolbigk, in Z.f Kirchcngeschichte,
xvii. 94 ; G. Paris, in Journal des
Savants (1899), 733.

THE MAY-GAME

163

too often done to its property *. A seventeenth-century
French writer records that he had seen clergy and singing-
boys dancing at Easter in the churches of Paris 2 ; and even
at the present day there are some astounding survivals. At
Seville, as is well known, the six boys, called los Seises, dance
with castanets before the Holy Sacrament in the presence of
the archbishop at Shrovetide, and during the feasts of the
Immaculate Conception and Corpus Christi 3. At Echternach
in Luxembourg there is an annual dance through the church
of pilgrims to the shrine of St. Willibrord 4, while at Barjols
in Provence a ' tripe-dance ' is danced at mass on St. Marcel's
day in honour of the patron 6.

Still less, of course, did dance and song cease to be important
features of the secular side of the festivals. We have already
seen how cantilenae on the great deeds of heroes had their
vogue in the mouths of the chori of young men and maidens,
as well as in those of the minstrels 6. The Carmina Burana

1 H. E. Reynolds, Wells Cathe-
dral, 85 ' cum ex choreis ludis et
spectaculis et Iapidum proiectioni-
bus in prae/ata ecclesia et eius
cemeteriis ac claustro dissentiones
sanguinis efFusiones et violentiae
saepius oriantur et in hiis dicta
Wellensis ecclesia multa dispendia
patiatur.'

2 Menestrier, Des Ballets anciens
et modernes (1863), 4 ; on other
French church dances, cf. Du Til-
liot, 21; Barthe'lemy, iv. 447;
Leber, ix. 420. The most famous
are the pilota of Auxerre, which was
accompanied with ball-play (cf. ch.
vi) and the bergeretta of Besancon.
Julian, Diet, of Hymn. 206, gives
some English examples.

3 Grove, 106. A full account of
the ceremony at the feast of the
Conception in 1901 is given in the
Church Times for Jan. 17, 1902.

4 Grove, 103 ; Berenger-F^raud,
iii. 430; Me'lusine (1879), 39; N.
and Q. for May 17, 1890. The
dance is headed by the clergy, and
proceeds to a traditional tune from
the banks of the Sure to the church,
up. sixty-two steps, along the north

aisle, round the altar deasil, and
down the south aisle. It is curious
that until the seventeenth century
only men took part in it. St. Willi-
brord is famous for curing nervous
diseases, and the pilgrimage is done
by way of vow for such cures. The
local legend asserts that the cere-
mony had its origin in an eighth-
century cattle-plague, which ceased
through an invocation of St. Willi-
brord : it is a little hard on the
saint, whose prohibition of dances
at the church-door has just been
quoted.

6 Berenger-Fe'raud, iii. 409. A
similarly named saint, St. Martial,
was formerly honoured in the same
way. Every psalm on his day
ended, not with the Gloria Patri,
but with a dance, and the chant,
' Saint- Marceau, pregas per nous,
et nous epingaren per vous ' (Du
Meril, La Com. 68).

0 Cf. p. 26. There were ' ma-
dinnis that dansit ' before James IV
of Scotland at Forres, Elgin and
Dernway in 1504, but nothing is
said of songs (L. H. T. Accounts, ii.
463).

M a

164 FOLK DRAMA

describe the dances of girls upon the meadows as amongst
the pleasures of spring 1. William Fitzstephen tells us that
such dances were to be seen in London in the twelfth century2,
and we have found the University of Oxford solemnly for-
bidding them in the thirteenth. The romans and pastonrelles
frequently mention chansons or rondets de carole, which appear
to have been the chansons used to accompany the choric
dances, and to have generally consisted of a series of couplets
sung by the leader, and a refrain with which the rest of the
band answered him. Occasionally the refrains are quoted 3.
The minstrels borrowed this type of folk chanson, and the
conjoint dance and song themselves found their way from the
village green to the courtly hall. In the twelfth century
ladies carolent, and more rarely even men condescend to take
a part 4. Still later carole, like tripudium, seems to become a
term for popular rejoicing in general, not necessarily expressed
in rhythmical shape 6.

The customs of the village festival gave rise by natural
development to two types of dance 6. There was the pro-
cessional dance of the band of worshippers in progress round
their boundaries and from field to field, from house to house,

1 Carm. Bur. 191 : French carole was always accom-

' ludunt super gramina panied, not with a flute, but with a

virgines decorae sung chanson.

quarum nova carmina 4 Paris, loc. cit. 410 ; Jeanroy,

dulci sonant ore.' 391. In Wace's description of

Ibid. 195 : Arthur's wedding, the women ca-

1 ecce florescunt lilia, rolent and the men behourdent. Cf.

et virginum dant agmina Bartsch, Romanzen und Pastou-

summo deorum carmina.' rellen, i. 13 :

8 W. Fitzstephen, Descriptio ' Cez damoiseles i vont por

Londin. {Mat. for Hist, of Becket, caroler,

R. S. iii. Il) ' puellarum Cytherea cil escuier i vont por behorder,

ducit choros usque imminente luna, cil chevalier i vont por esgar-

et pede libero pulsatur tellus.' der.'

^ Jeanroy, 102, 387 ; Guy, 504 ; B On the return of Edward II

Paris, Journal des Savants (1892), and Isabella of France in 1308, the

407. M. Paris points out that mayor and other dignitaries of

dances, other than professional, London went ' coram rege et regina

first appear in the West after the karolantes' (Chronicles of Ed-

fall of the Empire. The French ward I and Edward II, R. S. i.

terms for dancing— bailer, danser, 152). On the birth of Prince Ed-

treschier, caroler — are not Latin, ward in 13 1 2, they ' menerent la

Caroler, however, he thinks to be karole'in church and street (Riley,

the Greek xopavkfiv, 'to accompany 107).

a dance with a flute.' But the a Kogel, i. 1. 6.

THE MAY-GAME 165

from well to well of the village. It is this that survives in the
dance of the Echternach pilgrims, or in the 'faddy-dance' in
and out the cottage doors at Helston wake. And it is prob-
ably this that is at the bottom of the interesting game of
* Thread the Needle.' This is something like ' Oranges and
Lemons,' the first part of which, indeed, seems to have been
adapted from it. There is, however, no sacrifice or ' tug-of-
war,' although there is sometimes a ' king,' or a ' king ' and
his ' lady ' or ' bride ' in the accompanying rhymes, and in one
instance a ' pancake.' The players stand in two long lines.
Those at the end of each line form an arch with uplifted arms,
and the rest run in pairs beneath it. Then another pair form
an arch, and the process is repeated. In this way long strings
of lads and lasses stream up and down the streets or round
and about a meadow or green. In many parts of England
this game is played annually on Shrove Tuesday or Easter
Monday, and the peasants who play it at Chatre in central
France say that it is done ' to make the hemp grow/ Its
origin in connexion with the agricultural festivals can there-
fore hardly be doubtful 1. It is probable that in the beginning
the players danced rather than ran under the ' arch ' ; and it
is obvious that the • figure ' of the game is practically identical
with one familiar in Sir Roger de Covcrlcy and other old
English ' country ' dances of the same type.

Just as the ' country ' dance is derived from the processional
dance, so the other type of folk-dance, the ronde or 'round,' is
derived from the comparatively stationary dance of the group
of worshippers around the more especially sacred objects of
the festival, such as the tree or the fire2. The custom of
dancing round the May-pole has been more or less preserved
wherever the May-pole is known. But ' Thread the Needle '
itself often winds up with a circular dance or ronde, either
around one of the players, or, on festival occasions, around the
representative of the earlier home of the fertilization divinity,

1 Mrs. Gomme, ii. 228; Haddon, room. Grimm, i. 52, quotes Gre-
345. gory the Great, Dial. iii. 28 on a

2 Cf. ch. vi on the motion deasil Lombard sacrifice, ' caput caprae,
round the sacred object. It is hoc ei, per circuitum currentes,
curious that the modern round carmine nefando dedicantes.'
dances go withershins round a

166 FOLK DRAMA

the parish church. This custom is popularly known as
1 clipping the church V

Naturally the worshippers at a festival would dance in their
festival costume ; that is to say, in the garb of leaves and
flowers worn for the sake of the beneficent influence of the
indwelling divinity, or in the hides and horns of sacrificial
animals which served a similar purpose. Travellers describe
elaborate and beautiful beast-dances amongst savage peoples,
and the Greeks had their own bear- and crane-dances, as well
as the dithyrambic goat-dance of the Dionysia. They had
also flower dances 2. In England the village dancers wear
posies, but I do not know that they ever attempt a more
elaborate representation of flowers. But a good example of
the beast-dance is furnished by the ' horn-dance ' at Abbots
Bromley in Staffordshire, held now at a September wake, and
formerly at Christmas. In this six of the performers wear sets
of horns. These are preserved from year to year in the church,
and according to local tradition the dance used at one time
to take place in the churchyard on a Sunday. The horns are
said to be those of the reindeer, and from this it may possibly
be inferred that they were brought to Abbots Bromley by
Scandinavian settlers. The remaining performers represent
a hobby-horse, a clown, a woman, and an archer, who makes
believe to shoot the horned men 3.

The motifs of the dances and their chanso?is must also at first
have been determined by the nature of the festivals at which
they took place. There were dances, no doubt, at such domestic

1 At Bradford -on -Avon, Wilts ' dumplings' and 'a bundle of rags'

(which preserves its Anglo-Saxon perhaps connect themselves with

church), and at South Petherton, the cereal cake and the rags hung

Somerset, in both cases on Shrove on the tree for luck. In Cornwall

Tuesday (Mrs. Gomme, ii. 230) ; cf. such a game is played under the

Vaux, 18. The church at Painswick, name of ' Snail's Creep 'at certain

Gloucester, is danced round on village feasts in June, and directed

wake-day (F. L. viii. 392). There by young men with leafy branches.

is a group of games, in which the 2 Du Me"ril, La Com. 72 ; Had-

players wind and unwind in spirals don, 346; Grove, 50, 81; Haigh,

round a centre. Such are EllerTree, 14; N. W. Thomas, La Dansc

Windup the Bush Faggot,a.nd Butli- totimique en Europe, in Actes d.

heisle. These Mrs. Gomme regards Cong, intern, d. Trad. pop. (1900).

as survivals of the ritual dance ? Plot, Hist, of Staffs. (1686) ;

round a sacred tree. Some obscure F. L. iv. 172; vii. 382 (with cuts of

references in the rhymes used to properties) ; Ditchfield, 139.

THE MAY-GAME

167

festivals as weddings and funerals 1. In Flanders it is still the
custom to dance at the funeral of a young girl, and a very charm-
ing chanson is used 2. The development of epic poetry from
the cantilenae of the war-festival has been noted in a former
chapter. At the agricultural festivals, the primary motif is, of
course, the desire for the fertility of the crops and herds. The
song becomes, as in the Anglo-Saxon charm, so often referred
to, practically a prayer 3. With this, and with the use of
'Thread the Needle' at Chatre ' to make the hemp grow,' may
be compared the games known to modern children, as to
Gargantua, in which the operations of the farmer's year, and
in particular his prayer for his crops, are mimicked in a ronde*.
Allusions to the process of the seasons, above all to the
delight of the renouveau in spring, would naturally also find
a place in the festival songs. The words of the famous
thirteenth-century lyric were perhaps written to be sung to
the twinkling feet of English girls in a round. It has the
necessary refrain :

1 The O. H. G. hileih, originally
meaning ' sex-dance,' comes to be
1 wedding.' The root hi, like ivini
(cf. p. 1 70), has asexual connotation
(Pearson, ii. 132; Kogel, i. 1. 10).

2 Coussemaker, Chants popu-
laircs des Flamands de France,
100:

' In den hemel is eenen dans :
Alleluia.
Daer dansen all' de maegde-
kens :
Benedicamus Domino,
Alleluia, Alleluia,
't is voor Amelia :

Alleluia.
Wy dansen naer de maegde-
kens :
Benedicamus, etc'
8 Frazer, i. 35 ; Dyer, 7 ; North-
all, 233. A Lancashire song is
sung ' to draw you these cold
winters away,' and wishes ' peace
and plenty ' to the household. A
favourite French May chanson is
' Etrennez notre £pous£e,
Voici le mois,
Le joli mois de Mai,
Etrennez notre e"pouse"e
En bonne £trenne.

Voici le mois,

Le joli mois de Mai,
Qu'on vous amene.'
If the queteurs come on a churl,
they have an ill-wishing variant.
The following is characteristic of
the French peasantry :

' J'vous souhaitons autant d'en-
fants,

Qu'y a des pierrettes dans les
champs.'
Often more practical tokens of re-
venge are shown. The Plough
Monday ' bullocks ' in some places
consider themselves licensed to
plough up the ground before a
house where they have been re-
buffed.'

* Mrs. Gomme, ii. 1, 399 ; Had-
don, 343 ; Du Me"ril, La Com. 81.
Amongst the jeux of the young
Gargantua (Rabelais, i. 22) was one
' a semer l'avoyne et au laboureur.'
This probably resembled the games
of Oats and Beans and Barley, and
Would you know how doth the
Peasant? which exist in English,
French, Catalonian, and Italian
versions. On the mimetic character
of these games, cf. ch. viii.

168 FOLK DRAMA

' Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu !
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wde nu,

Sing cuccu !

'Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth' after calve cu.
Bulloc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu !

1 Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes thu, cuccu ;
Ne swik thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!'1

The savour of the spring is still in the English May songs,
the French maierolles or calendes de mat and the Italian
calen di maggio. But for the rest they have either become
little but mere qucte songs, or else, under the influence of the
priests, have taken on a Christian colouring2. At Oxford
the ' merry ketches ' sung by choristers on the top of Magdalen
tower on May morning were replaced in the seventeenth
century by the hymn now used 3. Another very popular
Mayers' song would seem to show that the Puritans, in despair
of abolishing the festival, tried to reform it.

1 Text from Harl. MS. 978 in formance began as a mass for the
H. E. Wooldridge, Oxford Hist, of obit of Henry VII. The hymn is
Music, i. 326, with full account, printed in Dyer, 259 ; Ditchfield,
The music, to which religious as 96. It has no relation to the sum-
well as the secular words are at- mer festival, having been written in
tached, is technically known as a the seventeenth century by Thomas
rota or rondel. It is of the nature Smith and set by Benjamin Rogers
of polyphonic part-song, and of as a grace. In other cases hymns
course more advanced than the have been attached to the village
typical mediaeval rondet can have festivals. At Tissington the ' well-
been, dressing,' on Ascension Day in-

2 On these songs in general, see eludes a clerical procession in which
Northall, 233 ; Martinengo-Cesa- ' Rock of Ages ' and ' A Living
resco, 249; Cortet, 153; Tiersot, Stream 'are sung (Ditchfield, 187).
191; Jeanroy, 88; Paris, J. des A special ' Rushbearers' Hymn'
Savants (1891), 685, (1892), 155, was written for the Grasmere Rush-
407. bearing in 1835, and a hymn for

3 H. A. Wilson, Hist, of Magd. St. Oswald has been recently added
Coll. (1899), 50. Mr. Wilson dis- (E. G. Fletcher, The Rushbearing,
credits the tradition that the per- 13, 74).

THE MAY-GAME 169

' Remember us poor Mayers all,
And thus we do begin
To lead our lives in righteousness,
Or else we die in sin.

' We have been rambling all this night,
And almost all this day :
And now returned back again,

We have brought you a branch of May.

' A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands ;
It is but a sprout, but it's well budded out,
By the work of our Lord's hands,' &C.1

Another religious element, besides prayer, may have entered
into the pre-Christian festival songs; and that is myth.
A stage in the evolution of drama from the Dionysiac dithy-
ramb was the introduction of mythical narratives about the
wanderings and victories of the god, to be chanted or recited by
the choragns. The relation of the choragus to the chorus bears
a close analogy to that between the leader of the mediaeval
carole and his companions who sang the refrain. This leader
probably represents the Keltic or Teutonic priest at the head
of his band of worshippers ; and one may suspect that in the
north and west of Europe, as in Greece, the pauses of the
festival dance provided the occasion on which the earliest
strata of stories about the gods, the hieratic as distinguished
from the literary myths, took shape. If so the development of
divine myth was very closely parallel to that of heroic myth 2.
After religion, the commonest motif of dance and song at
the village festivals must have been love. This is quite in
keeping with the amorous licence which was one of their
characteristics. The goddess of the fertility of earth was also
the goddess of the fertility of women. The ecclesiastical pro-
hibitions lay particular stress upon the orationes amatoriac and
the cantica turpia et luxuriosa which the women sang at the
church doors, and only as love-songs can be interpreted the
winileodi forbidden to the inmates of convents by a capitulary

1 Dyer, 240, from Hertfordshire. There are many other versions ; cf.
Northall, 240. * Kogel, i. I. 32.

170 FOLK DRAMA

of 789 *. The love-interest continues to be prominent in the
folk-song, or the minstrel song still in close relation to folk-
song, of mediaeval and modern France. The beautiful wooing
chanson of Transformations, which savants have found it
difficult to believe not to be a supercherie ; is sung by harvesters
and by lace-makers at the pillow2. That of Marion, an ironic
expression of wifely submission, belongs to Shrove Tuesday 3.
These are modern, but the following, from the Chansonnier
de St. Germain, may be a genuine mediaeval folk-song of
Limousin provenance :

'A l'entrada dal tems clar, eya,
Per joja recomencar, eya,
Et per jelos irritar, eya,
Vol la regina mostrar
Qu'el' es si amoroza.
Alavi', alavia jelos,
Laissaz nos, laissaz nas
Ballar entre nos, entre nos V

The ' queen ' here is, of course, the festival queen or lady of
the May, the regina avrillosa of the Latin writers, la reine, la
marine, liponse'e, la trimousette of popular custom 6. The
defiance of the jelos, and the desire of the queen and her
maidens to dance alone, recall the conventional freedom of
women from restraint in May, the month of their ancient sex-
festival, and the month in which the mediaeval wife-beater
still ran notable danger of a chevauche'e.

1 Pertz, Leges, i. 68 ' nullatenus the idea of this poem in A Match
ibi uuinileodos scribere vel mittere (Poems and Ballads, 1st Series,
praesumat.' Kogel, i. 1. 61 : Goe- 116).

deke, i. 11, quote other uses of the 3 Romania, ix. 568.

term from eighth-century glosses, * K. Bartsch, Chrest. Prov. ill.

e.g. ' uuiniliod, cantilenas saecu- A similar chanson is in G. Raynaud,

lares, psalmos vulgares, seculares, Motets, i. 151, and another is de-

plebeios psalmos, cantica rustica et scribed in the rotnan of Flamenca

inepta.' Winiliod is literally ' love- (ed. P. Meyer), 3244. It ends

song,' from root wini (conn, with ' E, si parla, qu'il li responda :

Venus). Kogel traces an earlier Nom sones mot, faitz vos en lai,

term O. H. G. winileih, A.-S. wine- Qu'entre mos braes mos amies

Idc = hileih. On the erotic motive j'ai.

in savage dances, cf. Grosse, 165, Kalenda maia. E vai s' en.'

172 ; Him, 229. 5 Trimousette, from tri tnd cd,

2 Romania, vii. 61 ; Trad. Pop. an unexplained burden in some of
i. 98. Mr. Swinburne has adapted the French maierolles.

THE MAY-GAME 171

The amorous note recurs in those types of minstrel song
which are most directly founded upon folk models. Such are
the chansons a danser with their refrains, the chansons de mal-
mariies, in which the 'Jalous' is often introduced, the anbes
and the pastourelles1. Common in all of these is the spring
setting proper to the chansons of our festivals, and of the
( queen ' or ' king ' there is from time to time mention. The
leading theme of the pastourelles is the wooing, successful or
the reverse, of a shepherdess by a knight. But the shepherdess
has generally also a lover of her own degree, and for this pair
the names of Robin and Marion seem to have been conven-
tionally appropriated. Robin was perhaps borrowed by the
pastourelles from the widely spread refrain

' Robins m'aime, Robins m'a :
Robins m'a demandee : si m'ara2.'

The borrowing may, of course, have been the other way round,
but the close relation of the chanson a danser with its refrain
to the dance suggests that this was the earliest type of lyric
minstrelsy to be evolved, as well as the closest to the folk-song
pattern. The pastourelle forms a link between folk-song and
drama, for towards the end of the thirteenth century Adan de
la Hale, known as ' le Bossu,' a minstrel of Arras, wrote a Jeu de
Robin et Marion, which is practically a pastourelle par person-
nages. The familiar theme is preserved. A knight woos
Marion, who is faithful to her Robin. Repulsed, he rides
away, but returns and beats Robin. All, however, ends*
happily with dances and jeu x amongst the peasants. Adan
de la Hale was one of the train of Count Robert of Artois in
Italy. The play may originally have been written about 1283
for the delectation of the court of Robert's kinsman, Charles,
king of Naples, but the extant version was probably produced
about 1290 at Arras, when the poet was already dead.
Another hand has prefixed a dramatic prologue, the Jeu du
Pelerin, glorifying Adan, and has also made some interpola-
tions in the text designed to localize the action near Arras.

1 Guy, 503. 197, 295 ; Raynaud, Rec. de Motets,

2 Tiersot, Robin et Marion ; Guy, i. 227.
506. See the refrain in Bartsch,

172 FOLK DRAMA

The performers are not likely to have been villagers : they
may have been the members of some puy or literary society,
which had taken over the celebration of the summer festival.
In any case the Jeu de Robin et Marion is the earliest and
not the least charming of pastoral comedies l.

It is impossible exactly to parallel from the history of
English literature this interaction of folk-song and minstrelsy
at the French fete dn mat. For unfortunately no body of
English mediaeval lyric exists. Even ' Sumer is icumen in '
only owes its preservation to the happy accident which led
some priest to fit sacred words to the secular tune ; while the
few pieces recovered from a Harleian manuscript of the reign
of Edward I, beautiful as they are, read like adaptations less
of English folk-song, than of French lyric itself2. Neverthe-
less, the village summer festival of England seems to have
closely resembled that of France, and to have likewise taken
in the long run a dramatic turn. A short sketch of it will not
be without interest.

I have quoted at the beginning of this discussion of folk-
customs the thirteenth-century condemnations of the Inductio
Maii by Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln and of the ludide Rege
et Regina by Bishop Chanteloup of Worcester. The ludus de
Rege et Regina is not indeed necessarily to be identified with
the Inductio Maii, for the harvest feast or Inductio Autumni of
Bishop Grosseteste had also its ' king ' and ' queen,' and so too
had some of the feasts in the winter cycle, notably Twelfth
night 3. It is, however, in the summer feast held usually on

1 Langlois, Robin et Marion : those by E. Langlois (1896), and

Romania, xxiv. 437 ; H. Guy, A dan by Bartsch in La Langue et la

de la Hale, 177; J. Tiersot, Sur le Litteraticre francaises (1887), col.

Jeu de Robin et Marion (1897); 523. E. de Coussemaker, CEuvres

Petit de Julleville, La Comddie, 27 ; de Adam de la Halle (1872), 347,

Rep. Com. 21, 324. Ajeuoi Robin gives the music, and A. Rambeau,

et Marion is recorded also as Die dent Trouvere Adam de la

played at Angers in 1392, but there Halle zugeschriebenen Dramen

is no proof that this was Adan de (1886), facsimiles the text. On

la Hale's play, or a drama at all. Adan de la Hale's earlier sottie of

There were folk going ' desguiziez, La Feuille'e, see ch. xvi.

a un jeu que Ten dit Robin et 2 Thomas Wright, Lyrical Poems

Marion, ainsi qu'il est accoutume' of the Reign of Edward I (Percy

de fere, chacun an, en les foiries de Soc).

Penthecouste ' (Guy, 197). The best 3 Cf. ch. xvii.
editions of Robin et Marion are

THE MAY-GAME

173

the first of May or at Whitsuntide *, that these rustic dignitaries
are more particularly prominent. Before the middle of the
fifteenth century I have not come across many notices of them.
That a summer king was familiar in Scotland is implied by
the jest of Robert Bruces wife after his coronation at Scone in
1306 2. In 1412 a ' somerkyng ' received a reward from the
bursar of Winchester College 3. But from about 1450 onwards
they begin to appear frequently in local records. The whole
ludus is generally known as a ' May-play ' or 'May-game,' or
as a ' king-play 4,' ' king's revel V or ' king-game 6.' The
leading personages are indifferently the ' king ' and ' queen,' or
1 lord ' and ' lady.' But sometimes the king is more specifically
the ' somerkyng ' or rex aestivalis. At other times he is the
' lord of misrule V or takes a local title, such as that^ of the
'Abbot of Marham,' 'Mardall,' 'Marrall,' 'Marram,' 'Mayvole'
or 'Mayvoll' at Shrewsbury 8, and the 'Abbot of Bon-Accord'

1 The May-game is probably in-
tended by the ' Whitsun pastorals '
of Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 134, and
the ' pageants of delight ' at Pente-
cost, where a boy ' trimmed in
Madam Julias gown ' played ' the
woman's part ' (i. e. Maid Marian)
of Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 4.
163. Cf. also W. Warner, Albioris
England, v. 25 :

' At Paske began our Morrise, and
ere Penticost our May.'

2 Flores Historiarum (R. S.), iii.
130 ' aestimo quod rex aestivalis
sis ; forsitan hyemalis non eris.'

s Cf. Appendix E.

* ' King-play' at Reading (Read-
ing St. Giles Accounts in Brand-
Hazlitt, i. 157 ; Kerry, Hist, of St.
Lawrence, Reading, 226).

6 ' King's revel ' at Croscombe,
Somerset ( Churchwardens' Ac-
counts in Hobhouse, 3).

6 'King'sgame'at Leicester (Kel-
ly, 68) and 'King-game' at Kingston
(Lysons, Environs of London, i.
225). On the other hand the King-
game in church at Hascombe in 1 578
(Representations, s. v. Hascombe),
was probably a miracle-play of the
Magi or Three Kings of Cologne.
This belongs to Twelfth night (cf.

ch.xix),but curiously the accounts of
St. Lawrence, Reading, contain a
payment for the ' Kyngs of Colen '
on May day, 1498 (Kerry, loc. cit.).

7 Cf. ch. xvii. Local ' lords of mis-
rule' in the summer occur at Mon-
tacute in 1447-8 (Hobhouse, 183
' in expensis Regis de Montagu apud
Tyntenhull existentis tempore aesti-
vali'), at Meriden in 1565 (Sharpe,
209), at Melton Mowbray in 1558
(Kelly, 65), at Tombland, near Nor-
wich (Norfolk Archaeology, iii. 7 ; xi.
345), at Broseley, near Much Wen-
lock, as late as 1652 (Burne-Jackson,
480). See the attack on them in
Stubbes, i. 146. The term 'lord of
misrule ' seems to have been bor-
rowed from Christmas (ch. xvii).
It does not appear whether the
lords of misrule of Old Romney in
1525 (Archaeologia Cantiana, xiii.
216) and Braintree in 1531 (Pear-
son, ii. 413) were in winter or sum-
mer.

8 Owen and Blakeway, i. 33 1 ;
Jackson and Burne, 480 (cf. Appen-
dix E). Miss Burne suggests several
possible derivations of the name ;
from mar ' make mischief,' from
Mardoll or Marwell (St. Mary's
Well), streets in Shrewsbury, or

174 FOLK DRAMA

at Aberdeen K The use of an ecclesiastical term will be ex-
plained in a later chapter 2. The queen appears to have been
sometimes known as a 'whitepot' queen3. And finally the king
and queen receive, in many widely separated places, the names
of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and are accompanied in
their revels by Little John, Friar Tuck, and the whole joyous
fellowship of Sherwood Forest 4. This affiliation of the ludus
de Rege et Regina to the Robin Hood legend is so curious as
to deserve a moment's examination 5.

The earliest recorded mention of Robin Hood is in
Langland's Piers Plowman, written about 1377. Here he
is coupled with another great popular hero of the north as
a subject of current songs :

'But I can rymes of Robyn hood, and Randolf erle of
Chestre V
In the following century his fame as a great outlaw spread far
and wide, especially in the north and the midlands 7. The
Scottish chronicler Bower tells us in 1447 that whether for
comedy or tragedy no other subject of romance and minstrelsy

from Muryvale or Meryvalle, a local that from 1553 Robin Hood suc-

hamlet. But the form ' Mayvoll ' ceeds the Abbot of Mayvoie in the

seems to point to ' Maypole.' May-game at Shrewsbury (Appen-

1 Representations, s. v. Aberdeen, dix E). Similarly, in an Aberdeen
Here the lord of the summer feast order of 1508 we find 'Robert Huyid
seems to have acted also as pre- and Litile Johne, quhilk was callit,
senter of the Corpus Christi plays. in yers bipast, Abbat and Prior of

2 Cf. ch. xvii. Bonacord ' {Representations, s. v.

3 Batman, Golden Books of the Aberdeen). Robin Hood seems,
Leaden Gods (1577), f. 30. The therefore, to have come rather late
Pope is said to be carried on the into the May-games, but to have
backs of four deacons, ' after the enjoyed a widening popularity.
maner of carying whytepot queenes 6 The material for the study of
in Western May games.' A 'white- the Robin Hood legend is gathered
pot ' is a kind of custard. together by S. Lee in D. N. B. s, v.

4 Such phrases occur as ' the Hood ; Child, Popular Ballads, v.
May -play called Robyn Hod' 39 ; Ritson, Robin. Hood (1832); J.M.
(Kerry, Hist, of St. Lawrence, Gutch, Robin Hood (1847). Prof.
Reading, 226, s. a. 1502), 'Robin Child gives a critical edition of all
Hood and May game ' and ' Kyng- the ballads.

gam and Robyn Hode ' {Kingston 8 Piers Plowman, B-text, passus

Accounts, 1505-36, in Lysons, En- v. 401.

virons of London, i. 225). The 7 Fabian, Chronicle, 687, records

accounts of St. Helen's, Abingdon, in 1502 the capture of 'a feiowe

in 1566, have an entry 'for setting whych hadde renewed many of

up Robin Hood's bower' (Brand- Robin Hode's pagentes, which

Hazlitt, i. 144). It is noticeable named himselfe Greneleef.'

THE MAY-GAME 175

had such a hold upon the common folk1. The first of the
extant ballads of the cycle, A Gest of Robyn Hode, was
probably printed before 1500, and in composition may be at
least a century earlier. A recent investigator of the legend, and
a very able one, denies to Robin Hood any traceable historic
origin. He is, says Dr. Child, ' absolutely a creation of the
ballad muse.' However this may be, the version of the
Elizabethan playwright Anthony Munday, who made him an
earl of Huntingdon and the lover of Matilda the daughter of
Lord Fitzwater, may be taken as merely a fabrication. And
whether he is historical or not, it is difficult to see how he got,
as by the sixteenth century he did get, into the May-game.
One theory is that he was there from the beginning, and that
he is in fact a mythological figure, whose name but faintly
disguises either Woden in the aspect of a vegetation deity 2,
or a minor wood-spirit Hode, who also survives in the
Hodeken of German legend 3. Against this it may be pointed
out, firstly that Hood is not an uncommon English name,
probably meaning nothing but ' a-Wood or ' of the wood V
and secondly that we have seen no reason to suppose that the
mock king, which is the part assigned to Robin Hood in
the May-game, was ever regarded as an incarnation of the
fertilization spirit at all. He is the priest of that spirit, slain
at its festival, but nothing more. I venture to offer a more
plausible explanation. It is noticeable that whereas in the
May-game Robin Hood and Maid Marian are inseparable, in
the early ballads Maid Marian has no part. She is barely
mentioned in one or two of the latest ones 5. Moreover
Marian is not an English but a French name, and we have
already seen that Robin and Marion are the typical shepherd
and shepherdess of the French pastonrelles and of Adan de

1 Cf. p. 177. If he is mythological at all, may he

2 Kiihn, in Haupt's Zeitschrift, not be a form of the ' wild-man '
v. 481. or ' wood-woz ' of certain spring

3 Ramsay, F. E. i. 168. dramatic ceremonies, and the

4 In the Nottingham Hall-books 'Green Knight' of romance? Cf.
(Hist. MSS. i. 105), the same local- ch. ix.

ity seems to be described in 1548 as 6 The earliest mention of her is

'Robyn Wood's Well,' and in 1597 (tisoo) in A. Barclay, Eclogue, 5,

as ' Robyn Hood's Well.' Robin ' some may fit of Maide Marian or

Hood is traditionally clad in green, else of Robin Hood.'

176 FOLK DRAMA

la Hale's dramatic jeu founded upon these. I suggest then,
that the names were introduced by the minstrels into English
and transferred from the French fetes du mai to the ' lord '
and ' lady ' of the corresponding English May-game. • Robin
Hood grew up independently from heroic cantilenae, but owing
to the similarity of name he was identified with the other
Robin, and brought Little John, Friar Tuck and the rest with
him into the May-game. On the other hand Maid Marian,
who does not properly belong to the heroic legend, was in
turn, naturally enough, adopted into the later ballads. This
is an hypothesis, but not, I think, an unlikely hypothesis.

Of what, then, did the May-game, as it took shape in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, consist ? Primarily, no
doubt, of a quite or ' gaderyng.' In many places this became
a parochial, or even a municipal, affair. In 1498 the corpora-
tion of Wells possessed moneys ' provenientes ante hoc tempus
de Robynhode1.' Elsewhere the churchwardens paid the
expenses of the feast and accounted for the receipts in
the annual parish budget2. There are many entries con-
cerning the May-game in the accounts of Kingston-on-
Thames during some half a century. In 1506 it is recorded
that ' Wylm. Kempe ' was ' kenge ' and ' Joan Whytebrede '
was 'quen.' In 1513 and again in 1536 the game went to
Croydon 3. Similarly the accounts of New Romney note that
in 1422 or thereabouts the men of Lydd 'came with their
may and ours V and those of Reading St. Lawrence that in
1505 came ' Robyn Hod of Handley and his company' and
in 1507 ' Robyn Hod and his company from ffynchamsted 5.'
In contemporary Scotland James IV gave a present at mid-

1 Hist. MSS. i. 107, from Convo- raised by the 'lord' was set aside
cation Book, ' pecuniae ecclesiae ac for mending the highways (Kelly,
communitatis Welliae . . . videlicet, 65).

provenientes ante hoc tempus de 3 LysonsyEnvirons, i. 225. Men-

Robynhode, puellis tripudiantibus, tion is made of Robin Hood,' 'the

communi cervisia ecclesiae, ethuius- Lady,' 'Maid Marion,' 'Little

modi.' John,' ' the Frere,' ' the Fool,* ' the

2 The accounts of Croscombe, Dysard,' ' the Morris-dance.'
Somerset, contain yearly entries of * Archaeologia Cantiana, xiii. 216.
receipts from ' Roben Hod's re- 6 C. Kerry, History of St. Law-
cones' from 1476 to 15 10, and rence, Reading, 226. 'Made Ma-
again in 1525 (Hobhouse, 1 sqq.). ryon,' 'the tree' and 'the morris-
At Melton Mowbray the amount dance,' are mentioned.

THE MAY-GAME 177

summer in 1503 ( to Robin Hude of Perth1.' It would hardly
have been worth while, however, to carry the May-game from
one village or town to another, had it been nothing but a
procession with a garland and a ' gaderyng ' ; and as a matter
of fact we find that in England as in France dramatic
performances came to be associated with the summer folk-
festivals. The London ' Maying ' included stage plays 2. At
Shrewsbury lusores under the Abbot of Marham acted inter-
ludes ' for the glee of the town ' at Pentecost 3. The guild of
St. Luke at Norwich performed secular as well as miracle
plays, and the guild of Holy Cross at Abingdon held its
feast on May 3 with 'pageants, plays and May-games,' as
early as 1445 4. Some of these plays were doubtless miracles,
but so far as they were secular, the subjects of them were
naturally drawn, in the absence of pastotirelles, from the ballads
of the Robin Hood cycle 5. Amongst the Paston letters is
preserved one written in 1473, m which the writer laments the
loss of a servant, whom he has kept ' thys iij yer to pleye
Seynt Jorge and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham6.'
Moreover, some specimens of the plays themselves are still
extant. One of them, unfortunately only a fragment, must be
the very play referred to in the letter just quoted, for its
subject is ' Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham,' and
it is found on a scrap of paper formerly in the possession of
Sir John Fenn, the first editor of the Paston Letters1. A second

1 L. H. T. Accounts, ii. 377. 'tragoediae' in the fifteenth century,

2 Stowe, Survey (1598), 38. He cf. ch. xxv.

is speaking mainly of the period 6 Gairdner, Paston Letters, in.

before 1 5 17, when there was a riot 89; Child, v. 90; ' W. Woode,

on 'Black' May-day, and afterwards whyche promysed . . . he wold

the May-games were not ' so freely never goo ffro me, and ther uppon

used as before.' I have kepyd hym thys iij yer to

3 Appendix E (vi). pleye Seynt Jorge and Robyn Hod
* Cf. Representations. and the Shryff off Nottyngham, and
8 Bower (t 1437), Scotichronlcon now, when I wolde have good horse,

(ed. Hearne), iii. 774 ' ille famosissi- he is goon into Bernysdale, and I

mus sicarius Robertus Hode et withowt a keeper.' The North-

Litill-Iohanne cum eorum complici- umberland Household Book, 60,

bus, de quibus stolidum vulgus makes provision for ' liveries for

hianter in comoediis et tragoediis Robin Hood' in theEarl's household,

prurienter festum faciunt, et, prae 7 Printed by Child, v. 90 ; Manly,

ceteris romanciis, mimos et barda- i. 279. The MS. of the fragment

nos cantitare delectantur.' On the probably dates before 1475.
ambiguity of 'comoediae' and

CHAMBERS. I N

178 FOLK DRAMA

play on ' Robin Hood and the Friar ' and a fragment of a third
on ' Robin Hood and the Potter ' were printed by Copland in
the edition of the Gest of Robyn Hode published by him about
1550 1. The Robin Hood plays are, of course, subsequent to
the development of religious drama which will be discussed
in the next volume. They are of the nature of interludes, and
were doubtless written, like the plays of Adan de la Hale, by
some clerk or minstrel for the delectation of the villagers. They
are, therefore, in a less degree folk-drama, than the examples
which we shall have to consider in the next chapter. But it is
worthy of notice, that even in the heyday of the stage under
Elizabeth and James I, the summer festival continued to supply
motives to the dramatists. Anthony Munday's Downfall and
Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon 2, Chapman's May-Day,
and Jonson's delightful fragment The Sad Shepherd form an
interesting group of pastoral comedies, affinities to which
may be traced in the As You Like It and Winter s Tale
of Shakespeare himself.

As has been said, it is impossible to establish any direct
affiliation between the Robin Hood plays and earlier caroles
on the same theme, in the way in which this can be done for
Xhejeu of Adan de la Hale, and the Robin and Marion of the
pastourcllcs. The extant Robin Hood ballads are certainly not
caroles ; they are probably not folk-song at all, but minstrelsy
of a somewhat debased type. The only actual trace of such
caroles that has been come across is the mention of ' Robene
hude ' as the name of a dance in the Complaynt of Scotland

1 Printed by Child, v. 114, 127; two are lost, as is The May Lord
Manly, i. 281, 285. They were ori- which Jonson wrote {Conversations
ginally printed as one play by with Drummond,2j). Robin Hood
Copland (t 1550). also appears in Peele's Edward I

2 Printed in Dodsley-Hazlitt, vol. (ti59o), and the anonymous Look
viii. These plays were written for About You (1600), and is the hero
Henslowe about February 1598. In of Greene's George a Greene the
November Chettle ' mended Roben Pinner of Wakefield (t 1593). An-
hood for the corte' {Henslowe 's thonyMunday introduced him again
Diary, 118-20,139). At Christinas into his pageant of Metropolis Co-
1600, Henslowe had another play ronata (161 5), and a comedy of
of ' Roben hoodes penerths ' by Robin Hood and his Crew of Sol-
William Haughton {Diary, 174-5). diers, acted at Nottingham on the
An earlier ' pastoral pleasant come- day of the coronation of Charles II,
die of Robin Hood and Little John ' was published in 1661. On all these
was entered on the Stationers' Re- plays, cf. F. E. Schelling, The
gisters on May 18, 1 594. These English Chronicle Play, 156.

THE MAY-GAME 179

about 1548 \ Dances, however, of one kind or another, there
undoubtedly were at the May-games. The Wells corporation
accounts mention puellae tripudiantes in close relation with
Robynhode2. And particularly there was the morris-dance,
which was so universally in use on May-day, that it borrowed,
almost in permanence, for its leading character the name of
Maid Marian. The morris-dance, however, is common to
nearly all the village feasts, and its origin and nature will
be matter for discussion' in the next chapter.

In many places, even during the Middle Ages, and still
more afterwards, the summer feast dropped out or degenerated.
It became a mere beer-swilling, an ' ale V And so we find in
the sixteenth century a ' king-ale 4 ' or a ' Robin Hood's ale V
and in modern times a ' Whitsun-ale 6,' a 'lamb-ale7' or a
'gyst-ale8' beside the 'church-ales' and 'scot-ales' which the
thirteenth-century bishops had already condemned9. On
the other hand, the village festival found its way to court,
and became a sumptuous pageant under the splendour-loving
Tudors. For this, indeed, there was Arthurian precedent in
the romance of Malory, who records how Guenever was taken

1 Furnivall, Robert Laneham's 7 Cf. p. 141.

Letter, clxiii. Chaucer, Rom. of 8 At Ashton-under-Lyne, from

Rose, 7455, has 'the daunce Joly 1422 to a recent date (Dyer, 181).

Robin,' but this is from his French ' Gyst ' appears to be either ' gist '

original ' li biaus Robins.' {glte) ' right of pasturage ' or a cor-

2 Cf. p. 176. ruption of ' guising' ; cf. ch. xvii.

3 Dyer, 278 ; Drake, 86 ; Brand- 9 Cf. p. 91. On Scot-ale, cf.
Ellis, i. 157 ; Cutts, Parish Priests, Ducange, s. v. Scotallum; Archaeo-
317; Archaeologia, xii. 11 ; Stubbes, logia, xii. 11 ; H. T. Riley, Muni-
i. 150; F. L. x. 350. At an ' ale' a tnenta Gildhallae Londin. (R. S.),
cask of home-brewed was broached ii. 760. The term first appears as
for sale in the church or church- the name of a tax, as in a North-
house, and the profits went to some ampton charter of 1 189 (Markham-
public object ; at a church-ale to the Cox, Northampton Borough Re-
parish, at a clerk-ale to the clerk, cords, i. 26) ' concessimus quod sint
at a bride-ale or bridal to the quieti de . . . Brudtol et de Child-
bride, at a bid-ale to some poor wite et de hieresgiue et de Scottale.
man in trouble. A love-ale was ita quod Prepositus Northampto-
probably merely social. nie ut aliquis alius Ballivus scottale

* At Reading in 1557 (C. Kerry, non faciat' ; cf. the thirteenth-ceh-
Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading, 226). tury examples quoted by Ducange.

6 At Tintinhull in 1513 (Hob- The Council of Lambeth (1206), c. 2,

house, 200, ' Robine Hood's All '). clearly defines the term as ' com-

* Brand-Ellis, i. 157 ; Dyer, 278. munes potationes,' and the primary
Acarvingon the church of St. John's, sense is therefore probably that of
Chichester, represents a Whitsun- an ale at which a scot or tax is
ale, with a • lord ' and ' lady.' raised.

N 2

180 FOLK DRAMA

by Sir Meliagraunce, when • as the queen had mayed and all
her knights, all were bedashed with herbs, mosses, and flowers,
in the best manner and freshest 1.' The chronicler Hall tells
of the Mayings of Henry VIII in 1510, 151 1, and 1515. In
the last of these some hundred and thirty persons took part.
Henry was entertained by Robin Hood and the rest with
shooting-matches and a collation of venison in a bower ; and
returning was met by a chariot in which rode the Lady May
and the Lady Flora, while on the five horses sat the Ladies
Humidity, Vert, Vegetave, Pleasaunce and Sweet Odour2.
Obviously the pastime has here degenerated in another
direction. It has become learned, allegorical, and pseudo-
classic. At the Reformation the May-game and the May-
pole were marks for Puritan onslaught. Latimer, in one of
his sermons before Edward VI, complains how, when he had
intended to preach in a certain country town on his way to
London, he was told that he could not be heard, for 'it is
Robyn hoodes daye. The parishe are gone a brode to gather
for Robyn hoode V Machyn's Diary mentions the breaking
of a May-pole in Fenchurch by the lord mayor of 1552 4, and
the revival of elaborate and heterogeneous May-games through-
out London during the brief span of Queen Mary5. The
Elizabethan Puritans renewed the attack, but though some-
thing may have been done by reforming municipalities here
and there to put down the festivals 6,the ecclesiastical authori-

1 Ma\ory,Morted,Arthur,yi\x.i.2. * Machyn, 20.

9 Hall, 515, 520, 582; Brewer, 5 Ibid. 89, 137, 196, 201, 283,

Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, 373. In 1559, e.g. 'the xxiiij of

ii. 1504. In 1 5 10, Henry and his June ther was a May-game . . .

courtiers visited the queen's cham- and Sant John Sacerys, with a

ber in the guise of Robin Hood and gyant, and drumes and gunes [and

his men on the inappropriate date the] ix wordes (worthies), with

of January 18. In Scotland, about spechys, and a goodly pagant with

the same time, Dunbar wrote a a quen . . . and dyvers odur, with

' cry ' for a maying with Robin spechys ; and then Sant Gorge and

Hood ; cf. Texts, s.v. Dunbar. the dragon, the mores dansse, and

3 Latimer, Sermon vi before after Robyn Hode and lytyll John,

Edw. VI (1549, ed. Arber, 173). and M [aid Marian] and frere Tuke,

Perhaps the town was Melton Mow- and they had spechys round a-bout

bray, where Robin Hood was very London.'

popular, and where Latimer is shown 6 ' Mr. Tomkys publickeprechar'

by the churchwardens' accounts to in Shrewsbury induced the bailiffs

have preached several years later in to ' reform' May-poles in 1588, and

1553 (Kelly, 67). in 1591 some apprentices were com-

THE MAY-GAME

181

ties could not be induced to go much beyond forbidding them
to take place in churchyards l. William Stafford, indeed,
declared in 1581 that 'May-games, wakes, and revels' were
1 now laid down V but the violent abuse directed against them
only two years later by Philip Stubbes, which may be taken
as a fair sample of the Puritan polemic as a whole, shows that
this was far from being really the case 3. In Scotland the
Parliament ordered, as early as 1555, that no one 'be chosen
Robert Hude, nor Lytill Johne, Abbot of vnressoun, Quenis
of Maij, nor vtherwyse, nouther in Burgh nor to land wart in
ony tyme to cum *.' But the prohibition was not very effective,
for in 1577 and 1578 the General Assembly is found petition-
ing for its renewal 5. And in England no similar action was
taken until 1644 when the Long Parliament decreed the
destruction of such May-poles as the municipalities had spared.
Naturally this policy was reversed at the Restoration, and
a new London pole was erected in the Strand, hard by
Somerset House, which endured until 17 17 6.

mitted for disobeying the order. A
judicial decision was, however,given
in favour of the 'tree' (Burne-Jack-
son, 358 ; Hibbert, English Craft-
Gilds, 121). In London the Cornhill
Maypole, which gave its name to
St. Andrew Undershaft, was de-
stroyed by persuasion of a preacher
as early as 1549 (Dyer, 248) ; cf.
also Stubbes, i. 306, and Morrison's
advice to Henry VIII quoted in
ch. xxv.

1 Archbishop Grindal's Visita-
tion Articles of 1576 (Remains,
Parker Soc. 175), 'whether the
minister and churchwardens have
suffered any lords of misrule or
summer lords or ladies, or any
disguised persons, or others, in
Christmas or at May-games, or any
morris-dancers, or at any other
times, to come unreverently into
the church or churchyard, and there
to dance, or play any unseemly
parts, with scoffs, jests, wanton
gestures, or ribald talk, namely in
the time of Common Prayer.' Si-
milarly worded Injunctions for Nor-
wich (1569), York (1571), Lichfield
(1584), London (1601) and Oxlord

(161 9) are quoted in the Second
Report of the Ritual Commission ;
cf. the eighty-eighth Canon of 1604.
It is true that the Visitation Arti-
cles for St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, in
1584 inquire more generally 'whe-
ther there have been any lords of
mysrule, or somer lords or ladies, or
any disguised persons, as morice
dancers, maskers, or mum'ers, or
such lyke, within the parishe, ether
in the nativititide or in som'er, or
at any other tyme, and what be
their names'; but this church was
a 'peculiar' and its 'official' the
Puritan Tomkys mentioned in the
last note (Owen and Blakeway, i.
333 ; Burne-Jackson, 481).

2 Stafford, 16.

3 Stubbes, i. 146; cf. the further
quotations and references there
given in the notes.

4 6 Mary, cap. 61.

5 Child, v. 45 ; cf. Representa-
tions,s.v. Aberdeen, on the breaches
of the statute there in 1562 and 1565.

G Dyer, 228; Drake,«5. At Cerne
Abbas, Dorset, the May-pole was
cut down in 1635 and made into a
town ladder (F. L. x. 481).

CHAPTER IX
THE SWORD-DANCE

[Bibliographical Note. — The books mentioned in the bibliographical
note to the last chapter should be consulted on the general tendency
to fil/irja-is in festival dance and song. The symbolical dramatic cere-
monies of the renouveau are collected by Dr. J. G. Frazer in The Golden
Bough. The sword-dance has been the subject of two elaborate studies :
K. Miillenhoff, Ueber den Schwerttanz, in Festgaben fiir Gustav Homeyer
(1871), iii, with additions in Zeitschrift fur deutsches Alterthum, xviii. 9,
xx. 10; and F. A. Mayer, Ein deutsches Schwerttanzspiel aus Ungarn
(with full bibliography), in Zeitschrift fiir Volkerpsychologic (1889), 204,
416. The best accounts of the morris-dance are in F. Douce, Illustrations
of Shakespeare (1807, new ed. l839),and A. Burton, Rushbearing( 1 891), 95.]

The last two chapters have afforded more than one example
of village festival customs ultimately taking shape as drama.
But neither the English Robin Hood plays, nor the French
Jcu de Robin et Marion, can be regarded as folk-drama in the
proper sense of the word. They were written not by the folk
themselves, but by trouvhes or minstrels for the folk ; and at
a period when the independent evolution of the religious play
had already set a model of dramatic composition. Probably
the same is true of the Hox Tuesday play in the form in
which we may conjecture it to have been presented before
Elizabeth late in the sixteenth century. Nevertheless it is
possible to trace, apart from minstrel intervention and apart
from imitation of miracles, the existence of certain embryonic
dramatic tendencies in the village ceremonies themselves.
Too much must not be made of these. Jacob Grimm was
inclined to find in them the first vague beginnings of the
whole of modern drama1. This is demonstrably wrong.
Modern drama arose, by a fairly well defined line of evolution,
from a threefold source, the ecclesiastical liturgy, the farce of
the mimes, the classical revivals of humanism. Folk-drama
contributed but the tiniest rill to the mighty stream. Such as

1 Grimm, ii. 784 ; Kleinere Schriften, v. 281 ; Pearson, ii. 281.

THE SWORD-DANCE 183

it was, however, a couple of further chapters may be not
unprofitably spent in its analysis.

The festival customs include a number of dramatic rites
which appear to have been originally symbolical expressions
of the facts of seasonal recurrence lying at the root of the
festivals themselves. The antithesis of winter and summer,
the rencuveau of spring, are mimed in three or four distinct
fashions. The first and the most important, as well as the
most widespread of these, is the mock representation of a death
or burial. Dr. Frazer has collected many instances of the
ceremony known as the ' expulsion of Death V This takes
place at various dates in spring and early summer, but most
often on the fourth Sunday in Lent, one of the many names
of which is consequently Todten-Sonntag. An effigy is made,
generally of straw, but in some cases of birch twigs, a beechen
bough, or other such material. This is called Death, is treated
with marks of fear, hatred or contempt, and is finally carried
in procession, and thrust over the boundary of the village. Or
it is torn in pieces, buried, burnt, or thrown into a river or
pool. Sometimes the health or other welfare of the folk
during the year is held to depend on the rite being duly per-
formed. The fragments of Death have fertilizing efficacy for
women and cattle ; they are put in the fields, the mangers,
the hens' nests. Here and there women alone take part in
the ceremony, but more often it is common to the whole
village. The expulsion of Death is found in various parts of
Teutonic Germany, but especially in districts such as Thuringia,
Bohemia, Silesia, where the population is wholly or mainly
Slavonic. A similar custom, known both in Slavonic districts
and in Italy, France, and Spain, had the name of ' sawing the
old woman.' At Florence, for instance, the effigy of an old
woman was placed on a ladder. At Mid Lent it was sawn
through, and the nuts and dried fruits with which it was
stuffed scrambled for by the crowd. At Palermo there was
a still more realistic representation with a real old woman, to
whose neck a bladder of blood was fitted 2.

1 Frazer, ii. 82 ; Grant Allen, 293, 2 Frazer, ii. 86 ; Martinengo-Ce-
315; Grimm, ii. 764; Pearson, ii. saresco, 267. Cf. the use of the
283. bladder of blood in the St. Thomas

184 FOLK DRAMA

The 'Death ' of the German and Slavonic form of the custom
has clearly come to be regarded as the personification of the
forces of evil within the village ; and the ceremony of expul-
sion may be compared with other periodical rites, European
and non-European, in which evil spirits are similarly expelled1.
The effigy may even be regarded in the light of a scapegoat,
bearing away the sins of the community 2. But it is doubtful
how far the notion of evil spirits warring against the good
spirits which protect man and his crops is a European, or at
any rate a primitive European one 3 ; and it may perhaps be
taken for granted that what was originally thought to be
expelled in the rite was not so much either ' Death ' or ' Sin '
as winter. This view is confirmed by the evidence of an
eighth-century homily, which speaks of the expulsion of
winter in February as a relic of pagan belief4. Moreover, the
expulsion of Death is often found in the closest relation to
the more widespread custom of bringing summer, in the shape
of green tree or bough, into the village. The procession
which carries away the dead effigy brings back the summer
tree ; and the rhymes used treat the two events as connected5.

The homily just quoted suggests that the mock funeral or
expulsion of winter was no new thing in the eighth century.
On the other hand, it can hardly be supposed that customs
which imply such abstract ideas as death, or even as summer
and winter, belong to the earliest stages of the village festival.
What has happened is what happens in other forms of festival
play. The instinct of play, in this case finding vent in
a dramatic representation of the succession of summer to

procession at Canterbury (Refire- at Oxford (Dyer, 261) and elsewhere
sentations, s. v.). on May 1, and I have heard it said
1 Frazer, iii. 70. Amongst such that the object of the Oxford cus-
customs are the expulsion of Satan torn is to drive away evil spirits.
on New Year's day by the Finns, Similar discords are de rigueur at
the expulsion of Kore at Easter in Skimmington Ridings. I very much
Albania, the expulsion of witches doubt whether they are anything
on March I in Calabria, and on but a degenerate survival of a bar-
May 1 in the Tyrol, the frightening baric type of music,
of the wood-sprites Strudeli and 2 Frazer, iii. 121.
Stratteli on Twelfth night at Brun- 8 Tylor, Anthropology, 382.
nen in Switzerland. Such cere- 4 Caspari, 10 ' qui in mense fe-
monies are often accompanied with bruario hibernum credit expellere. ..
a horrible noise of horns, cleavers non christianus, sed gentilis est.'
and the like. Horns are also used 6 Frazer, ii. 91.

THE SWORD-DANCE 185

winter, has taken hold of and adapted to its own purposes
elements in the celebrations which, once significant, have
gradually come to be mere traditional survivals. Such are
the ceremonial burial in the ground, the ceremonial burning,
the ceremonial plunging into water, of the representative of
the fertilization spirit. In particular, the southern term ' the
old woman ' suggests that the effigy expelled or destroyed
is none other than the ' corn mother ' or ' harvest-May,'
fashioned to represent the fertilization spirit out of the last
sheaf at harvest, and preserved until its place is taken by
a new and green representative in the spring.

There are, however, other versions of the mock death in
which the central figure of the little drama is not the represen-
tative of the fertilization spirit itself, but one of the worshippers.
In Bavaria the Whitsuntide Pfi?igstl is dressed in leaves and
water-plants with a cap of peonies. He is soused with water,
and then, in mimicry, has his head cut off. Similar customs
prevail in the Erzgebirge and elsewhere \ We have seen
this Pjingstl before. He is the Jack in the green, the wor-
shipper clad in the god under whose protection he desires to
put himself2. But how can the killing of him symbolize the
spring, for obviously it is the coming summer, not the dying
winter, that the leaf-clad figure must represent ? The fact is
that the Bavarian drama is not complete. The full ceremony
is found in other parts of Germany. Thus in Saxony and
Thuringia a ' wild man ' covered with leaves and moss is
hunted in a wood, caught, and executed. Then comes forward
a lad dressed as a doctor, who brings the victim to life again
by bleeding3. Even so annually the summer dies and has its
resurrection. In Swabia, again, on Shrove Tuesday, ' Dr.
Eisenbart' bleeds a man to death, and afterwards revives
him. This same Dr. Eisenbart appears also in the Swabian
Whitsuntide execution, although here too the actual resur-
rection seems to have dropped out of the ceremony4. It is

1 Frazer, ii. 60. similar figures are not uncommon

2 Sometimes the Pfingstl is called in the sixteenth-century masques
a ' wild man.' Two ' myghty and entertainments,
woordwossys [cf. p. 392] or wyld 3 Frazer, ii. 62.

men' appeared in a revel at the court * Ibid. ii. 61, 82; E. Meier,

of Henry VIII in 1 5 1 3 {Revels Ac- Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Ge-
count in Brewer, ii. 1499), and brauche aus Schwaben, 374, 409.

186 FOLK DRAMA

interesting to note that the green man of the peasantry, who
dies and lives again, reappears as the Green Knight in one of
the most famous divisions of Arthurian romance 1.

The mock death or burial type of folk-drama resolves itself,
then, into two varieties. In one, it is winter whose passing is
represented, and for this the discarded harvest-May serves as
a nucleus. In the other, which is not really complete without
a resurrection, it is summer, whose death is mimed merely
as a preliminary to its joyful renewal ; and this too is built
up around a fragment of ancient cult in the person of the
leaf-clad worshipper, who is, indeed, none other than the
priest-king, once actually, and still in some sort and show,
slain at the festival 2. In the instances so far dealt with, the
original significance of the rite is still fairly traceable. But
there are others into which new meanings, due to the influence
of Christian custom, have been read. In many parts of
Germany customs closely analogous to those of the expulsion
of winter or Death take place on Shrove Tuesday, and have
suffered metamorphosis into 'burial of the Carnival3.' England
affords the 'Jack o' Lent' effigy which is taken to represent
Judas Iscariot 4, the Lincoln ' funeral of Alleluia 5,' the Tenby

1 Syr Gawayne and the Grene as the Carnival or Shrovetide
Knyghte (ed. Madden, Bannatyne ' Fool ' or ' Bear.'

Club, 1839); cf. J. L. Weston, The 4 Dyer, 93. The Jack o' Lent

Legend of Sir Gawain, 85. Arthur apparently stood as a cock-shy

was keeping New Year's Day, from Ash Wednesday to Good Fri-

when a knight dressed in green, day, and was then burnt. Portu-

with a green beard, riding a green guese sailors in English docks

horse, and bearing a holly bough, thrash and duck an effigy of Judas

and an axe of green steel, entered Iscariot on Good Friday (Dyer,

the hall. He challenged any man 155).

of the Round Table to deal him 5 Alleluia was not sung during
a buffet with the axe on condition of Lent. Fosbrooke, British Mona-
receiving one in return after the chism, 56, describes the Funeral of
lapse of a year. Sir Gawain accepts. Alleluia by the choristers of an
The stranger's head is cut off, but English cathedral on the Saturday
he picks it up and rides away with before Septuagesima. A turf was
it. This is a close parallel to the carried in procession with howl-
resurrection of the slain 'wild man.' ing to the cloisters. Probably this

2 Frazer, ii. 105, 115, 163, 219; cathedral was Lincoln, whence
Pausanias, iii. 53; v. 259; Gardner, Wordsworth, 105, quotes payments
New Chapters in Greek History, ' pro excludend' Alleluya' from 1452
395 > give Russian, Greek, and Asia- to 161 7. Leber, ix. 338 ; Barthelemy,
tic parallels. iii. 481, give French examples of

3 Frazer, ii. 71 ; Pfannenschmidt, the custom; cf. the Alleluia top,
302. The victim is sometimes known p. 128.

THE SWORD-DANCE 187

1 making Christ's bed V the Monkton ' risin' and buryin'
Peter V The truth that the vitality of a folk custom is far
greater than that of any single interpretation of it is admirably
illustrated.

Two other symbolical representations of the phenomena of
the renouvean must be very briefly treated. At Briancon in
Dauphine, instead of a death and resurrection, is used a pretty
little May-day drama, in which the leaf-clad man falls into
sleep upon the ground and is awakened by the kiss of a
maiden 3. Russia has a similar custom ; and such a magic
kiss, bringing summer with it, lies at the heart of the story of
the Sleeping Beauty. Indeed, the marriage of heaven and
earth seems to have been a myth very early invented by the
Aryan mind to explain the fertility of crops beneath the rain,
and it probably received dramatic form in religious ceremonies
both in Greece and Italy 4. Finally, there is a fairly wide-
spread spring custom of holding a dramatic fight between two
parties, one clad in green to represent summer, the other in
straw or fur to represent winter. Waldron describes this in
the Isle of Man 5 ; Olaus Magnus in Sweden 6. Grimm says
that it is found in various districts on both sides of the middle
Rhine7. Perhaps both this dramatic battle and that of the
Coventry Hox Tuesday owe their origin to the struggle for
the fertilizing head of a sacrificial animal, which also issued
in football and similar games. Dr. Frazer quotes several in-
stances from all parts of the world in which a mock fight,
or an interchange of abuse and raillery taking the place of
an actual fight, serves as a crop-charm8. The summer and
winter battle gave to literature a famous type of neo-Latin
and Romance debat 9. In one of the most interesting forms of

1 Dyer, 1 58. Reeds were woven May-queen is often called la marine
on Good Friday into the shape of or Fe'pouse.

a crucifix and left in some hidden * Frazer, i. 225 ; Jevons, Plutarch

part of a field or garden. R. Q. lxxxiii. 56.

2 Dyer, 333. The village feast 6 Waldron, Hist, of Isle of Man,
was on St. Peter's day, June 29. 95 ; Dyer, 246.

On the Saturday before an effigy 6 Olaus Magnus, History of

was dug up from under a sycamore Swedes and Goths, xv. 4, 8, 9 ;

on Maypole hill ; a week later it Grimm, ii. 774.

was buried again. In this case the 7 Grimm, ii.765; Paul, Grundriss

order of events seems to have been (ed. 1), i. 836.

inverted. 8 Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 267.

3 Frazer, i. 221. The French 9 Cf. ch. iv.

188 FOLK DRAMA

this, the eighth- or ninth-century Conflictus Veris et Hiemis,
the subject of dispute is the cuckoo, which spring praises and
winter chides, while the shepherds declare that he must be
drowned or stolen away, because summer cometh not. The
cuckoo is everywhere a characteristic bird of spring, and his
coming was probably a primitive signal for the high summer
festival \

The symbolical dramas of the seasons stand alone and
independent, but it may safely be asserted that drama first
arose at the village feasts in close relation to the dance. That
dancing, like all the arts, tends to be mimetic is a fact which
did not escape the attention of Aristotle 2. The pantomimes
of the decadent Roman stage are a case in point. Greek
tragedy itself had grown out of the Dionysiac dithyramb,
and travellers describe how readily the dances of the modern
savage take shape as primitive dramas of war, hunting, love,
religion, labour, or domestic life3. Doubtless this was the
case also with the caroles of the European festivals. The
types of chanson most immediately derived from these
are full of dialogue, and already on the point of bursting
into drama. That they did do this, with the aid of the
minstrels, in the Jeu de Robin et de Marion we have seen4.
A curious passage in the Itinerarium Cambriae of Giraldus
Cambrensis (f 1188) describes a dance of peasants in and

1 Grimm, ii. 675, 763 ; Swainson, elle-meme ... en simulant la gaiete"

Folk-lore of British Birds (F.L.S.), on parvenait reellement a la sentir.'

109; Hardy, Popular History of 3 Wallaschek, 216 ; Grosse, 165,

the Cuckoo, in F. L. Record, ii ; 201; Hirn, 157, 182,229,259,261;

Mannhardt, in Zeitschrift fiir Du Menl, Com. 72 ; Haddon,

deutsche Mythologie, iii. 209. Cf. 346; Grove, 52, 81 ; Mrs. Gomme,

ch. v. ii. 518 ; G. Catlin, On Manners . . .

j* Aristotle, Poetics, i. 5 aiV&5 8e of N. Amer. Indians (1841), i. 128,

rep pvdptp [TroieiTcu tt)v fjiifx^aiv] xap^ 244. Lang, M.R. R. i. 272, dwells

dpfiovias 17 [Te^J"?] tS>v 6pxrjo-T<bv, Kcu on the representation of myths in

yap ovtoi 81a r&v <TxrHxaTlC°lx*VUlV savage mystery-dances, and points

pvdpuv pupovvTai Ka\ fjOrj ko.1 ■naQr] Kal out that Lucian (loc. cit.) says that

■n-pdgeis. Cf. Lucian, de Saltatione, the Greeks used to ' dance out '

xv. 277. Du Menl, 65, puts the {t^opx^dai) their mysteries,

thing well : ' La danse n'a 6te Tin- 4 The chanson of Transforma-

vention de personne : elle s'est pro- tions (cf. p. 170) is sung by peasant-

duite d'elle-meme le jour que le girls as a semi-dramatic duet (Ro-

corps a subi et du refle'ter un £tat mania, vii. 62) ; and that of Marion

de Tame . . . On ne tarda pas was performed ' a deux person-

cependant a la s^parer de sa cause nages ' on Shrove Tuesday in Lor-

premiere et a la reproduire pour raine {Romania, ix. 568).

THE SWORD-DANCE 189

about the church of St. Elined, near Brecknock on the Gwyl
Awst, in which the ordinary operations of the village life, such
as ploughing, sewing, spinning were mimetically represented *.
Such dances seem to survive in some of the rondes or 'singing- *
games,' so frequently dramatic, of children 2. On the whole, /
perhaps, these connect themselves rather with the domestic"
than with the strictly agricultural element in village cult.
A large proportion of them are concerned with marriage.
But the domestic and the agricultural Cannot be altogether
dissociated. The game of Nuts in May,' for instance, seems
to have as its kernel a reminiscence of marriage by capture ;
but the ' nuts ' or rather ' knots ' or ' posies ' ' in May ' certainly
suggest a setting at a seasonal festival. So too, with ' Round
the Mulberry Bush.' The mimicry here is of domestic opera-
tions, but the ' bush ' recalls the sacred tree, the natural centre
of the seasonal dances. The closest parallels to the dance
described by Giraldus Cambrensis are to be found in the
rondes of Oats and Beans and Barley ' and ' Would you know
how doth the Peasant ? ', in which the chief, though not always
the only, subjects of mimicry are ploughing, sowing and the
like, and which frequently contain a prayer or aspiration for
the welfare of the crops 3.

1 Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinera- extractum occandum tanquam in

rium Cambriae, i. 2 {Opera, R.S. vi. fusum revocare : istam deambu-

32) ' Videas enim hie homines seu lando productis filis quasi telam

puellas, nunc in ecclesia, nunc in ordiri : illam sedendo quasi iam

coemiterio, nunc in chorea, quae orditam oppositis lanceolae iactibus

circa coemiterium cum cantilena et alternis calamistrae cominus icti-

circumfertur, subito in terram cor- bus texere mireris. Demum vero

ruere, et primo tanquam in extasim intra ecclesiam cum oblationibus ad

ductos et quietos ; deinde statim altare perductos tanquam experrec-

tanquam in phrenesim raptos exsi- tos et ad se redeuntes obstupescas.'
lientes, opera quaecunque festis 2 Cf. p. 15 1 with Mrs. Gomme's

diebus illicite perpetrare consue- Memoir (ii. 458) passim, and

verant, tarn manibus quam pedibus, Haddon, 328. Parallel savage

coram populo repraesentantes. vi- examples are in Wallaschek, 216;

deas hunc aratro manus aptare, Hirn, 157, 259.
ilium quasi stimulo boves excitare ; s Mrs. Gomme, ii. 399, 494 and

et utrumque quasi laborem miti- s. vv. ; Haddon, 340. Similar

gando solitas barbarae modulatio- games are widespread on the con-

nis voces efiferre. videas hunc artem tinent ; cf. the Rabelais quotation on

sutoriam, ilium pellipariam imitari. p. 167. Haddon quotes a French

item videas hanc quasi colum ba- formula, ending
iulando, nunc filum manibus et ' Aveine, aveine, aveine,

brachiis in longum extrahere, nunc Que le Bon Dieu t'amene.'

190 FOLK DRAMA

I have treated the mimetic element of budding drama in the
agricultural festivals as being primarily a manifestation of the
activities of play determined in its direction by the dominant
interests of the occasion, and finding its material in the debris
of ritual custom left over from forgotten stages of religious
thought. It is possible also to hold that the mimesis is more
closely interwoven with the religious and practical side of the
festivals, and is in fact yet another example of that primitive
magical notion of causation by the production of the similar,

which is at the root of the rain- and sun-charms. Certainly
the village dramas, like the other ceremonies which they
accompany, are often regarded as influencing the luck of the
farmer's year ; just as the hunting- and war-dances of savages
are often regarded not merely as amusement or as practice for
actual war and hunting, but as charms to secure success in
these pursuits1. But it does not seem clear to me that in this
case the magical efficacy belongs to the drama from the
beginning, and I incline to look upon it as merely part of
the sanctity of the feast as a whole, which has attached itself
in the course of time even to that side of it which began as play.
The evolution of folk-drama out of folk-dance may be most
completely studied through a comparison of the various types
of European sword-dance with the so-called ' mummers','
' guisers'/ or ' Pace - eggers' ' play of Saint George. The
history of the sword-dance has received a good deal of atten-
tion from German archaeologists, who, however, perhaps from
imperfect acquaintance with the English data, have stopped
short of the affiliation to it of the play 2. The dance itself
can boast a hoar antiquity. Tacitus describes it as the one
form of spectaculurn to be seen at the gatherings of the
Germans with whom he was conversant. The dancers were
young men who leapt with much agility amongst menacing

1 Wallaschek, 273 ; Hirn, 285. schichte des Tanzes in Deutschland

2 The German data here used are (1 886) ; Sepp, Die Religion der alten
chiefly collected by Miillenhofif and Detitschen, und ihr Fortbe stand in
F. A. Mayer ; cf. also Creizenach, Volkssagen, Aufziigen tind Fest-
i. 408 ; Michels, 84 ; J. J. Ammann, brauchen bis zur Gegenwart (1890),
Nachtrdge zic7n Schwerttanz, in 91 ; OWittstock,UeberdenSchwerl-
Z. f. d. Alterthum xxxiv (1890), tanz der Siebenbiirger Sachscn, in
178; A. Hartmann, Volksschauspiele Philologische Studien : Festgabe
(1880), 130; F. M. Bohme, Ge- fur Eduard Sievers (1896), 349.

THE SWORD-DANCE

191

spear-points and sword-blades *. Some centuries later the
use of sweorda-gelac as a metaphor for battle in Beowulf
shows that the term was known to the continental ancestors
of the Anglo-Saxons2. Then follows a long gap in the
record, bridged only by a doubtful reference in an eighth-
century Frankish homily 3, and a possible representation
in a ninth-century Latin and Anglo-Saxon manuscript4.
The minstrels seem to have adopted the sword-dance into
their repertory5, but the earliest mediaeval notice of it as
a popular Indus is at Nuremberg in 1350. From that date
onwards until quite recent years it crops up frequently, alike
at Shrovetide, Christmas and other folk festivals, and as
an element in the revels at weddings, royal entries, and the
like 6. It is fairly widespread throughout Germany. It is
found in Italy, where it is called the mattaccino1 , and in Spain
{matachin), and under this name or that of the dansedes bouffons
it was known both in France and England at the Renaissance 8.
It is given by Paradin in his Le Blason des Danses and, with
the music and cuts of the performers, by Tabourot in his
Orche'sographie (1588) 9. These are the sophisticated versions
of courtly halls. But about the same date Olaus Magnus
describes it as a folk-dance, to the accompaniment of pipes or
cantilenae, in Sweden 10. In England, the main area of the

1 Tacitus, Germania, 24 ' genus
spectaculorum unum atque in omni
coetu idem, nudi iuvenes, quibus id
ludicrum est, inter gladios se atque
infestas frameas saltu iaciunt. exer-
citatio artem paravit, ars decorem,
non in quaestum tamen aut merce-
dem ; quamvis audacis lasciviae
pretium est voluptas spectantium.'

2 Beowulf, 1042. It is in the
hall of Hrothgar at Heorot,

1 baet waes hilde - setl : heah-
cyninges,
bonne sweorda - gelac : sunu

Healfdenes
efnan wolde : n£fre on ore l£g
wid- cubes wfg : ponne walu
feollon.'
8 Appendix N, no. xxxix ; ' arma
in campo ostendit.'

* Strutt, 215. The tenth-century
to yoT&KoV at Byzantium seems to

have been a kind of sword-dance
(cf. ch. xii ad fin.').
6 Strutt, 260 ; Du Meril, La Com.

84.

6 Mayer, 259.

7 Mullenhoff, ■ 145, quoting Don
Quixote, ii. 20 ; Z.f. d. A. xviii. 1 1 ;
Du Me'ril, La Com. 86.

8 Webster, The White Devil, v.
6, 'a matachin, it seems by your
drawn swords ' ; the ' buffons ' is
included in the list of dances in the
Compiaynt of Scotland (t 1548) ;
cf. Furnivall, Laneham's Letter,
clxii.

9 Tabourot, Orche'sographie, 97,
Les Bouffons ou Mattachins. The
dancers held bucklers and swords
which they clashed together. They
also wore bells on their legs.

10 Cf. Appendix J.

192 FOLK DRAMA

acknowledged sword-dance is in the north. It is found,
according to Mr. Henderson, from the Humber to the
Cheviots ; and it extends as far south as Cheshire and
Nottinghamshire 1. Outlying examples are recorded from
Winchester 2 and from Devonshire 3. In Scotland Sir Walter
Scott found it among the farthest Hebrides, and it has also
been traced in Fifeshire4.

The name of danse des bouffons sometimes given to the
sword-dance may be explained by a very constant feature of
the English examples, in which the dancers generally include
or are accompanied by one or more comic or grotesque person-
ages. The types of these grotesques are not kept very
distinct in the descriptions, or, probably, in fact. But they
appear to be fundamentally two. There is the ' Tommy ' or
' fool,' who wears the skin and tail of a fox or some other
animal, and there is the ' Bessy,' who is a man dressed in
a woman's clothes. And they can be paralleled from outside
England. A Narr or Fasching (carnival fool) is a figure in
several German sword-dances, and in one from Bohemia he
has his female counterpart in a Mehlweib 6.

With the cantilenae noticed by Olaus Magnus may be com-
pared the sets of verses with which several modern sword-
dances, both in these islands and in Germany, are provided.

v They are sung before or during part of the dances, and as
\ a rule are little more than an introduction of the performers,

/ to whom they give distinctive names. If they contain any

1 Henderson, 67. The sword- Plough Monday. The figures in-

dance is also mentioned by W. eluded the placing of a hexagon or

Hutchinson, A View of North- rose of swords on the head of one

umberland (1778), ii ad fin. 18-, by of the performers. The dance was

J. Wallis, Hist, of Northumberland accompanied with ' Toms or downs'

(1779), ii. 28, who describes the masked or painted, and ' Madgies

leader as having 'a fox's skin, or Madgy- Pegs 'in women's clothes,

generally serving him for a cover- Sometimes a farce, with a king,

ing and ornament to his head, the miller, clown and doctor was added

tail hanging down his back ' ; and (G. Young, Hist, of Whitby (1817),

as practised in the north Riding of ii. 880).

Yorks. by a writer in the Gentle- 2 Cf. Appendix J.

man's Magazine (181 i),lxxxi. 1.423. 3 R. Bell, Ancient Poems, Bal-

Here it took place from St. Ste- lads and Songs of the Peasantry of

phen's to New Year's Day. There England, 175.

were six lads, a fiddler, Bessy and * Cf. Appendix J.

a Doctor. At Whitby, six dancers 6 Mayer, 230, 417.
went with the 'Plough Stots' on

THE SWORD-DANCE 193

incident, it is generally of the nature of a quarrel, in which
one of the dancers or one of the grotesques is killed. To
this point it will be necessary to return. The names given
to the characters are sometimes extremely nondescript; some-
times, under a more or less literary influence, of an heroic
order. Here and there a touch of something more primitive
may be detected. Five sets of verses from the north of
England are available in print. Two of these are of Durham
provenance. One, from Houghton-le-Spring, has, besides the
skin-clad ' Tommy ' and the ' Bessy,' five dancers. These
are King George, a Squire's Son also called AHck or Alex,
a King of Sicily, Little Foxey, and a Pitman \ The other
Durham version has a captain called True Blue, a Squire's Son,
Mr. Snip a tailor, a Prodigal Son (replaced in later years by
a Sailor), a Skipper, a Jolly Dog. There is only one clown,
who calls himself a ' fool/ and acts as treasurer. He is named
Bessy, but wears a hairy cap with a fox's brush pendent 2.
Two other versions come from Yorkshire. At Wharfdale
there are seven dancers, Thomas the clown, his son Tom,
Captain Brown, Obadiah Trim a tailor, a Foppish Knight,
Love-ale a vintner, and Bridget the clown's wife 3. At
Linton in Craven there are five, the clown, Nelson, Jack Tar,
Tosspot, and Miser a woman4. The fifth version is of
unnamed locality. It has two clowns, Tommy in skin and
tail, and Bessy, and amongst the dancers are a Squire's Son

• 1 Henderson, 67. The clown into a fight. Bell mentions a simi-

introduces each dancer in turn ; lar set of verses from Devonshire,

then there is a dance with raised 3 Bell, 172. A Christmas dance,

swords which are tied in a ' knot.' The clown makes the preliminary

Henderson speaks of a later set of circle with his sword, and calls on

verses also in use, which he does the other dancers,

not print. * Bell, j8i. The clown calls for

2 R. Bell, Ancient Poems, Bal- 'a room,' after which one of the party

lads and Songs of the Peasantry of introduces the rest. This also is a

England, ij$ (from Sir C. Sharpe's Christmas dacce, but as the words

Bishopritk Garland). A Christmas ' we've come a pace-egging ' occur,

dance. The captain began the it must have been transferred from

performance by drawing a circle Easter. Bell says that a somewhat

with his sword. Then the Bessy similar performance is given at

introduced the captain, who called Easter in Coniston, and Halliwell,

on the rest in turn, each walking Popular Rhymes and Nursery

round the circle to music. Then Tales, 244, describes a similar set of

came an elaborate dance with care- rhymes as used near York for pace-

ful formations, which degenerated egging.

CHAMBERS. 1 O

194 FOLK DRAMA

and a Tailor1. Such a nomenclature will not repay much
analysis. The ' Squire,' whose son figures amongst the
dancers, is identical with the ' Tommy,' although why he
should have a son I do not know. Similarly, the ' Bridget '
at Wharfdale and the ' Miser ' at Linton correspond to the
'Bessy' who appears elsewhere.

The Shetland dance, so far as the names go, is far more
literary and less of a folk affair than any of the English
examples. The grotesques are absent altogether, and the
dancers belong wholly to that heroic category which is also
represented in a degenerate form at Houghton-le-Spring.
They are in fact those ' seven champions of Christendom '—
St. George of England, St. James of Spain, St. Denys of
France, St. David of Wales, St. Patrick of Ireland, St. Anthony
of Italy, and St. Andrew of Scotland — whose legends were first
brought together under that designation by Richard Johnson
in 1596 2.

Precisely the same divergence between a popular and
a literary or heroic type of nomenclature presents itself in
such of the German sword-dance rhymes as are in print.
Three very similar versions from Styria, Hungary, and Bohemia
are traceable to a common ' Austro-Bavarian ' archetype 3.
The names of these, so far as they are intelligible at all,
appear to be due to the village imagination, working perhaps
in one or two instances, such as * Grunwald ' or ' Wilder
Waldmann,' upon stock figures of the folk festivals4. It is
the heroic element, however, which predominates in the two
other sets of verses which are available. One is from the
Clausthal in the Harz mountains, and here the dancers
represent the five kings of England, Saxony, Poland, Den-
mark, and Moorland, together with a serving-man, Hans, and
one Schnortison, who acts as leader and treasurer of the

1 Described by Miillenhoff, 138, Styrian verses: they are Obersteiner

from Ausland (1857), No. 4, f. 81. (the Vortdnzer) or Hans Kanix,

The clown gives the prologue, and Fasching (the Narr), Obermayer,

introduces the rest. Jungesgsell, Grunwald, Edlesblut,

* Cf. p. 221. Springesklee, Schellerfriedl, Wilder

3 Mayer prints and compares all Waldmann, Handssupp, Ruben-
three texts. dunst, Leberdarm, Rotwein, Hofen-

4 Cf. p. 185. The original names streit.
seem to be best preserved in the

THE SWORD-DANCE 195

party1. In the other, from Liibeck, the dancers are the
' worthies ' Kaiser Karl, Josua, Hector, David, Alexander,
and Judas Maccabaeus. They fight with one Sterkader, in
whom Mullenhoff finds the Danish hero Stercatherus men-
tioned by Saxo Grammaticus ; and to the Hans of the
Clausthal corresponds a Klas Rugebart, who seems to be
the red-bearded St. Nicholas2.

In view of the wide range of the sword-dance in Germany,
I do not think it is necessary to attach any importance to the
theories advanced by Sir Walter Scott and others that it is,
in England and Scotland, of Scandinavian origin. It is true
that it appears to be found mainly in those parts of these
islands where the influence of Danes and Northmen may
be conjectured to have been strongest. But I believe that
this is a matter of appearance merely, and that a type of folk-
dance far more widely spread in the south of England than
the sword-dance proper, Js really identical wTtrTTE This is
the morris-dance, the chief characteristic of which is that the
performers wear bells which jingle at every step. Judging
by the evidence of account-books, as well as by the allusions
of contemporary writers, the morris was remarkably popular
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 3. Frequently, but
by no means always, it is mentioned in company with the
May-game 4. In a certain painted window at Betley in
Staffordshire are represented six morris-dancers, together
with a Maypole, a musician, a fool, a crowned man on
a hobby-horse, a crowned lady with a pink in her hand,
and a friar. The last three may reasonably be regarded as
Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Friar Tuck 5. The closeness

1 H. Prohle, Weltliche unci geist- shown before Elizabeth at Kenil-
liche Volkslieder und Volksschau- worth 'a lively morrisdauns, accord-
spi'ele (1855), 245. ing too the auncient manner: six

2 Mullenhoff, Z.f, d. A. xx. 10. daunserz, Mawdmarion, and the
8 Brand-Ellis, i. 142 ; Douce, fool.'

576; Burton, 95; Gutch, Robin 6 A good engraving of the window

Hood, i. 301 ; Drake, 76. is in Variorum Shakespeare, xvi.

4 Burton, 117; Warner, A //don's 419, and small reproductions in

England, v. 25 'At Paske begun Brand, i. 145 ; Burton, 103 ; Gutch,

our Morrise, and ere Penticost our i. 349; Mr. Toilet's own account of

May.' The morris was familiar the window, printed in the Vario-

in the revels of Christmas. Lane- rum, loc. cit., is interesting, but too

ham., 23, describes at the Bride-ale ingenious. He dates the window

O 2,

196 FOLK DRAMA

of the relation between the morris-dance and the May-game
is, however, often exaggerated. The Betley figures only
accompany the morris-dance ; they do not themselves wear
the bells. And besides the window, the only trace of evidence
that any member of the Robin Hood cortege, with the excep-
tion of Maid Marian, was essential to the morris-dance, is
a passage in a masque of Ben Jonson's, which so seems to
regard the friar1. The fact is that the morris-dance was
a great deal older, as an element in the May-game, than
Robin Hood, and that when Robin Hood's name was for-
gotten in this connexion, the morris-dance continued to be in
vogue, not at May-games only, but at every form of rustic
merry-making. On the other hand, it is true that the actual
dancers were generally accompanied by grotesque personages,
and that one of these was a woman, or a man dressed in
woman's clothes, to whom literary writers at least continued
to give the name of Maid Marian. The others have nothing
whatever to do with Robin Hood. They were a clown or
fool, and a hobby-horse, who, if the evidence of an Elizabethan
song ^an be trusted, was already beginning to go out of
fashion 2. A rarer feature was a dragon, and it is possible

in the reign of Henry VIII; Douce, schoolmaster :

585, a better authority, ascribes it ' I first appear . . .

to that of Edward IV. The next, the Lord of May and

1 Ben Jonson, The Gipsies Meta- Lady bright,

tnorphosed (ed, Cunningham, iii. The Chambermaid and Serving-

15 0 : man, by night

' Clod. They should be morris- That seek out silent hanging :

dancers by their gingle, but they then mine Host

have no napkins. And his fat Spouse, that wel-

iCockrel. No, nor a hobby-horse. comes to their cost

'Clod. Oh, he's often forgotten, The galled traveller, and with a

that's no rule ; but there is no Maid beck'ning

Marian nor Friar amongst them, Informs the tapster to inflame

which is the surer mark. the reck'ning :

' Cockrel. Nor a fool that I see. ' Then the beast-eating Clown,

2 The lady, the fool, the hobby- and next the Fool,

horse are all in Toilet's window, The Bavian, with long tail and

and in a seventeenth-century print- eke long tool ;

ing by Vinkenboom from Rich- Cum multis aliis, that make a

mond palace, engraved by Douce, dance.'

598 ; Burton, 105. Cf. the last Evidently some of these dramatis

note and other passages quoted by personae are not traditional; the

Douce, Brand, and Burton. In ingenuity of the presenter has been

Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 5, 125, a at work on them. ' Bavian ' as a

morris of six men and six women name for the fool, is the Dutch

is thus presented by Gerrold, -the • baviaan, 'baboon.' His 'tail' is to

THE SWORD-DANCE

197

that, when there was a dragon, the rider of the hobby-horse
was supposed to personate St. George l. The morris-dance
is by no means extinct, especially in the north and midlands.
Accounts of it are available from Lancashire and Cheshire 2,
Derbyshire 3, Shropshire 4, Leicestershire 5, and Oxford-

be noted ; for the phallic shape
sometimes given to the bladder
which he carries, cf. Rigollot, 164.
In the Betley window the fool has
a bauble ; in the Vinkenboom pic-
ture a staff with a bladder at one
end, and a ladle (to gather money
in) at the other. In the window
the ladle is carried by the hobby-
horse. ' The hobby-horse is forgot '
is a phrase occurring in L. L. L. iii.
I. 30 ; Hamlet, iii. 2. 144, and
alluded to by Beaumont and
Fletcher, Women Pleased, iv. I,
and Ben Jonson, in the masque
quoted above, and in The Satyr
(Cunningham, ii. 577). Apparently
it is a line from a lost ballad.

1 Stubbes, i. 147, of the 'devil's
daunce ' in the train of the lord of
misrule, evidently a morris, ' then
haue they their Hobby-horses,
dragons & other Antiques.' In
VV. Sampson's Vow-breaker (1636),
one morris-dancer says ' I'll be a
fiery dragon'; another, 'I'll be
a thund'ring Saint George as ever
rode on horseback.'

2 Burton, 40, 43, 48, 49, 56, 59,
61, 65, 69, 75, 115, 117, 121, 123,
cites many notices throughout the
century, and gives several figures.
The morris is in request at wakes
and rushbearings. Both men and
women dance, sometimes to the
number of twenty or thirty. Gay
dresses are worn, with white skirts,
knee-breeches and ribbons. Hand-
kerchiefs are carried or hung on
the arm or wrist, or replaced by
dangling streamers, cords, or
skeins of cotton. Bells are not
worn on the legs, but jingling horse-
collars are sometimes carried on
the body. There is generally a fool,
described in one account as wearing
'a horrid mask.' He is, however,
generally black, and is known as

'King Coffee' (Gorton), 'owd sooty-
face,' ' dirty Bet,' and ' owd molly-
coddle.' This last name, like the
' molly-dancers ' of Gorton, seems
to be due to a linguistic corruption.
In 1829 a writer describes the fool
as ' a nondescript, made up of the
ancient fool and Maid Marian.' At
Heaton, in 1830, were two figures,
said to represent Adam and Eve,
as well as the fool. The masked
fool, mentioned above, had as com-
panion a shepherdess with lamb
and crook.

8 Burton, 115, from Journal of
Archaeol. Assoc, vii. 201. The
dancers went on Twelfth-night,
without bells, but with a fool, a
' fool's wife ' and sometimes a
hobby-horse.

4 Jackson and Burne, 402, 410,
477. The morris-dance proper is
mainly in south Shropshire and at
Christmas. At Shrewsbury, in
1885, were ten dancers, with a fool.
Five carried trowels and five short
staves which they clashed. The
fool had a black face, and a bell on
his coat. No other bells are men-
tioned. Staves or wooden swords
are used at other places in Shrop-
shire, and at Brosely all the faces
are black. The traditional music
is a tabor and pipe. A 1652 ac-
count of the Brosely dance with
six sword-bearers, a ' leader or lord
of misrule ' and a ' vice ' (cf. ch.
xxv) called the ' lord's son ' is
quoted. In north-east Shropshire,
the Christmas ' guisers ' are often
called ' morris-dancers,' ' murry-
dancers,' or ' merry-dancers.' In
Shetland the name 'merry dancers'
is given to the aurora borealis
(J. Spence, Shetland Folk-Lore,
116).

8 Leicester F. L. 93. The dance
was on Plough Monday with paper

198

FOLK DRAMA

shire 1 ; and there are many other counties in which it makes, or
has recently made, an appearance 2. The hobby-horse, it would
seem, is now at last, except in Derbyshire, finally ' forgot ' ;
but the two other traditional grotesques are still de rigneur.
Few morris-dances are complete without the ' fool ' or clown,
amongst whose various names that of ' squire ' in Oxfordshire
and that of 'dirty Bet' in Lancashire are the most interesting.
The woman is less invariable. Her Tudor name of Maid Marian
is preserved in Leicestershire alone ; elsewhere she appears as
a shepherdess, or Eve, or 'the fool's wife'; and sometimes she
is merged with the ' fool ' into a single nondescript personage.
The morris-dance is by no means confined to England.
There are records of it from Scotland 3, Germany 4, Flanders 5,
Switzerland6, Italy7, Spain8, and France9. In the last-named

masks, a plough, the bullocks, men
in women's dresses, one called Maid
Marian, Curly the fool, and Beelze-
bub. This is, I think, the only
survival of the name Maid Marian,
and it may be doubted if even
this is really popular and not
literary.

1 P. Manning, Oxfordshire Sea-
sonal Festivals, in F. L. viii. 317,
summarizes accounts from fourteen
villages, and gives illustrations.
There are always six dancers. A
broad garter of bells is worn below
the knee. There are two sets of
figures : in one handkerchiefs are
carried, in the other short staves
are swung and clashed. Some-
times the dancers sing to the air,
which is that of an old country-
dance. There is always a fool, who
carries a stick with a bladder and
cow's tail, and is called in two
places ' Rodney,' elsewhere the
' squire.' The music is that of a
pipe and tabor ('whittle' and 'dub')
played by one man ; a fiddle is now
often used. At Bampton there was
a solo dance between crossed
tobacco-pipes. At Spelsbury and
at Chipping Warden the dance used
to be on the church-tower. At the
Bampton Whit-feast and the Duck-
lington Whit-hunt, the dancers
were accompanied by a sword-
bearer, who impaled a cake. A

sword-bearer also appears in a list
of Finstock dancers, given me by
Mr. T. J. Carter, of Oxford. He
also told me that the dance on
Spelsbury church-tower, seventy
years ago, was by women.

2 Norfolk, Monmouthshire, Berk-
shire (Douce, 606) ; Worcester-
shire, Northamptonshire, Glouces-
tershire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire,
Warwickshire, and around London
(Burton, 114).

3 L. H. T. Accounts, ii. 414 ; iii.

359, 381.

4 Pfannenschmidt, 582; Michels,
84; Creizenach, i. 411. Burton,
102, reproduces, from Art Journal
(1885), 121, cuts of ten morris-
dancers carved in wood at Munich
by Erasmus Schnitzer in 1480.

5 Douce, 585, and Burton, 97,
reproduce Israel von Mecheln's
engraving (fi47o) of a morris with
a fool and a lady.

6 Coquillart,c2sw'Z/r<?.y(tl47o), 127.

7 Memoires de Petrarque, ii. app.
3, 9 ; Petrarch danced ' en pour-
point une belle et vigoureuse mo-
resque ' to please the Roman ladies
on the night of his coronation.

8 Somers Tracts, ii. 81, 87. The
Earl of Nottingham, when on an
embassy from James I, saw morrice-
dancers in a Corpus Christi pro-
cession.

9 Douce, 480 ; Favine, Theater

THE SWORD-DANCE

199

country Tabourot described it about 1588 under the name
of morisqne 1i and the earlier English writers call it the
morisce, morisk, or morisco2. This seems to imply a deriva-
tion of the name at least from the Spanish morisco, a Moor.
The dance itself has consequently been held to be of Moorish
origin, and the habit of blackening the face has been con-
sidered as a proof of this 3. Such a theory seems to invert
the order of facts. The dance is too closely bound up with
English village custom to be lightly regarded as a foreign
importation ; and I would suggest that the faces were not
blackened, because the dancers represented Moors, but rather
the dancers were thought to represent Moors, because their
faces were blackened. The blackened^ face is common
enough in theyillage^Jestival. Hence, as we have seen,
May-day became proper to the chimney-sweeps, and we have
found a conjectural reason for the disguise in the primitive
custom of smearing the face with the beneficent ashes of the
festival fire 4. Blackened faces are known in the sword-dance
as well asJajthe morns-dance 6.; and there are other reasons
which make it probable that the two are only variants of the

of Honor, 345 : at a feast given by
Gaston de Foix at Vendome, in
1458, ' foure young laddes and
a damosell, attired like savages,
daunced (by good direction) an
excellent Morisco, before the as-
sembly.'

1 Tabourot, Orche'sographie , 94:
in his youth a lad used to come
after supper, with his face black-
ened, his forehead bound with
white or yellow taffeta, and bells
on his legs, and dance the morris
up and down the hall.

2 Douce, 577 ; Burton, 95.

* A dance certainly of Moorish
origin is the fandango, in which
castanets were used ; cf. the comedy
of Variety (1649) 'like a Baccha-
nalian, dancing the Spanish Morisco,
with knackers at his fingers' (Strutt,
223). This, however, seems to show
that the fandango was considered
a variety of morisco. Douce, 602 ;
Burton, 1 24, figure an African woman
from Fez dancing with bells on her
ankles. This is taken from Hans

Weigel's book of national costumes
published at Nuremberg in 1577.

4 Tabourot's morris-dancing boy
had his face blackened, and Junius
(F. Du Jon), Etymologicum Angli-
canum (1743), says of England
'faciemplerumque inficiunt fuligine,
et peregrinum vestium cultum as-
sumunt, qui ludicris talibus indul-
gent, ut Mauri esse videantur, aut
e longius remota patria credantur
advolasse, atque insolens recrea-
tionis genus ad vexisse.' \viSpousalls
of Princess Mary ( 1 508) ' morisks '
is rendered ' ludi Maurei quas
morescas dicunt.' In the modern
morris the black element is repre-
sented, except at Brosely, chiefly by
'owd sooty face,' the fool : in Leices-
tershire it gives rise to a distinct
figure, Beelzebub.

6 Du Meril, La Com. 89, quotes
a sixteenth-century French sword-
dance of * Mores, Sauvages, et
Satyres.' In parts of Yorkshire the
sword-dancers had black faces or
masks (Henderson, 70).

200 FOLK DRAMA

same performance. Tabourot, it is true, distinguishes les
boujfons, or the sword-dance, and le morisque ; but then
Tabourot is dealing with the sophisticated versions of
the folk-dances used in society, and Cotgrave, translating
les bujfons, can find no better English term than morris for
the purpose l. The two dances appear at the same festivals,
and they have the same grotesques ; for the Tommy and
Bessy of the English sword-dance, who occasionally merge in
one, are obviously identical with the Maid Marian and the
'fool'of the morris-dance, who also nowadays similarly coalesce.
There are traces, too, of an association of the hobby-horse
with the sword-dance, as well as with the morris-clance 2.
Most conclusive of all, however, is the fact that in Oxford-
shire and in Shropshire the morris-dancers still use swords or
wooden staves which obviously represent swords, and that the
performers of the elaborate Revesby sword-dance or play, to
be hereafter described, are called in the eighteenth-century
manuscript ' morrice dancers V I do not think that the
floating handkerchiefs of the morris-dance are found in its
congener, nor do I know what, if any, significance they have.
Probably, like the ribbons, they merely represent rustic
notions of ornament. Mullenhoff lays stress on the white
shirts or smocks which he finds almost universal in the sword-
dance 4. The morris-dancers are often described as dressed in
white ; but here too, if the ordinary work-a-day costume is
a smock, the festal costume is naturally a clean white smock.
Finally, there are the bells. These, though they have partially
disappeared in the north, seem to be proper to the morris-

1 Cotgrave, ' Dancer les Buffons, s Cf. ch. x ; also Wise, Enquiries

To daunce a morris.' The term concerning the Inhabitants, . . . of

'the madman's morris' appears as Europe, 51 'the common people in

the name of the dance in The Figure many parts of England still practise

of Nine (temp. Charles II) ; cf. what they call a Morisco dance, in

Furnivall, LanehanCs Letter, clxii. a wild manner, and as it were in

The buffon is presumably the 'fool' ; armour, at proper intervals striking

cf. Cotgrave, ' Buffon : m. A upon one another's staves,' &c.

buffoon, jeaster, sycophant, merrie Johnson's Dictionary (1755) calls

fool, sportfull companion : one that the morris ' a dance in which bells

lives by making others merrie.' are gingled, or staves or swords

3 Henderson, 70. In Yorkshire clashed.'
the sword-dancers carried the image * Mullenhoff, 124; cf. Mayer,

of a white horse ; in Cheshire a 236.
horse's head and skin.

THE SWORD-DANCE 201

dance, and to differentiate it from the sword-dance1. But
this is only~slPwhen the English examples are alone taken
into consideration, for Miillenhoff quotes one Spanish and
three German descriptions of sword-dances in which the bells
are a feature2. Tabourot affords similar evidence for the
French version 3 ; while Olaus Magnus supplements his
account of the Scandinavian sword-dance with one of a similar
performance, in which the swords were replaced by bows, and
bells were added 4. The object of the bells was probably to
increase or preserve the musical effect of the clashing swords.
The performers known to Tacitus were nudi, and no bells are
mentioned. One other point with regard to the morris-dance
is worth noticing before we leave the subject. It is capable of
use both as a stationary and a processional dance, and
therefore illustrates both of the two types of dancing motion-
naturally evolved from the circumstances of the village
festival 5.

Miillenhoff regards the sword-dance as primarily a rhythmic
Abbild or mimic representation of war, subsequently modified
in character by use at the village feasts 6. It is true that the
notice of Tacitus and the allusion in Beowulf suggest that
it had a military character ; and it may fairly be inferred that
it formed part of that war-cult from which, as pointed out in
a previous chapter, heroic poetry sprang. This is confirmed
by the fact that some at least of the dramatis personae of
the modern dances belong to the heroic category. Side by
side with local types such as the Pitman or the Sailor, and
with doublets of the grotesques such as Little Foxey or the

1 Douce, 602 ; Barton, 123. The treble bells '; cf. Rowley, Witch of
bells were usually fastened upon Edmonton, i. 2.
broad garters, as they are still worn a Miillenhoff, 123 ; Mayer, 235.
in Oxfordshire. But they also s Tabourot, Orchisographie,^.
appear as anklets or are hung on 4 Cf. Appendix J. A figure with a
various parts of the dress. In a cut bow and arrow occurs in the Abbots
from Randle Holme's Academie of Bromley horn-dance (p. 166).
Armorie, iii. 109 (Douce, 603; 8 W. Kempe's Nine Days Wonder
Burton, 127), a morris-dancer holds (ed. Dyce, Camden Soc.) describes
a pair of bells in his hands. Some- his dancing of the morris in bell-
times the bells were harmonized, shangles from London to Norwich
In Pasquil and Marforius (1589) in 1599.
Penry is described as 'the fore 8 Miillenhoff, 114.
gallant of the Morrice with the

202 FOLK DRAMA

Squire's Son \ appear the five kings of the Clausthal dance,
the ' worthies ' of the Liibeck dance, and the ' champions of
Christendom ' of the Shetland dance. These particular groups
betray a Renaissance rather than a mediaeval imagination ; as
with the morris-dance of The Two Noble Kinsmen, the village
schoolmaster, Holophernes or another, has probably been at
work upon them 2. Some of the heterogeneous English
dramatis personae, Nelson for instance, testify to a still later
origin. On the other hand, the Sterkader or Stgrcatherus
of the Liibeck dance suggests that genuine national heroes
were occasionally celebrated in this fashion. At the same
time I do not believe, with MullenhofF, that the sword-dance
originated in the war-cult Its essentially agricultural
character seems to be shown by the grotesques traditionally
associated with it, the man in woman's clothes, the skin or
tail-wearing clown and the hobby-horse, all of which seem
to find their natural explanation in the facts of agricultural
worship 3. Again, the dance makes its appearance, not like
heroic poetry in general as part of the minstrel repertory, but
as a purely popular thingat the agricultural festivals. To
these fe^tivaJs^JJierefore, we may reasonably suppose it to
have originally belonged, and to have been borrowed from
them by the young warriors who danced before the king.
They, however, perhaps gave it the heroic element which, in

1 The ' Squire's Son ' of the (sixteenth century), looks more like
Durham dances is probably the a dance or play :

clown's son of the Wharfdale ' I ame a knighte

version; for the term 'squire' is And menes to fight
not an uncommon one for the rustic And armet well ame I

fool. Cf. also the Revesby play Lo here I stand

described in the next chapter. Why With swerd ine hand
the fool should have a son, I do not My manhoud for to try.

2°^u <xr- \xr _^u- » c r , Thou marciall wite

2 The 'Nine Worthies of Love's That menes to fight
Labour s Lost, v. 2 are a pageant And sete n me so
not a dance, and the two sets of Lo heare j stand
speeches quoted from Bodl. Tanner wkh swrdJ in hand

MS 407, by Ritson, Remarks on To dubbene eurey blow.'

Shakesfieare &, one of which is 8 M ^ finds in the

called by Ashton 127, the earliest dance I symboiicai drama of the

mummers play that he can find, death of Jinter but he does not

also probably belong to pageants. seem t0 see the actual relic of a

The following also quoted by R.tson sacrificial rite.
toe. at. from Hart. MS. 1197, f. 10 1*

THE SWORD-DANCE

203

its turn, drifted into the popular versions. We have already-
seen that popular heroic cantilenae existed together with
those of minstrelsy up to a late date. Nor does Miillenhoffs
view find much support from the classical sword-dances which
he adduces. As to the origin of the lusus Troiae or Pyrrhic
dance which the Romans adopted from Doric Greece, I can
say nothing1; but the native Italian dance of the Salii or
priests of Mars in March and October is clearly agricultural.
It belongs to the cult of Mars, not as war-god, but in his more
primitive quality of a fertilization spirit2.

Further, I believe that the use of swords in the dance was
not martial at all ; their object was to suggest not a fight, but
a mock or symbolical^gagfirlce. SeveraTof the dances include'
figures in which the swords are brought together in a signifi-
cant manner about the person of one or more of the dancers.
Thus in the Scandinavian dance described by Olaus Magnus,
a quadrata rosa of swords is placed on the head of each
performer. A precisely similar figure occurs in the Shetland
and in a variety of the Yorkshire dances 3. In the Sieben-
biirgen dances there are two figures in which the performers
pretend to cut at each other's heads or feet, and a third in
which one of them has the swords put in a ring round his
neck4. This latter evolution occurs also in a variety of the
Yorkshire dance 6 and in a Spanish one described by Miillen-

1 Mullenhoff, 114; Du Meril,
La Com. 82 ; Plato, Leges, 815 ;
Dion Cassius, Ix. 23 ; Suetonius,
Julius, 39, Nero, 12 ; Servius ad
Aen. v. 602 ; cf. p. 7. A Thracian
sword-dance, ending in a mimic
death, and therefore closely parallel
to the west European examples
mentioned in the next chapter, is
described by Xenophon, Anabasis,
v. 9.

2 Mullenhoff, 115; Frazer,iii.i22;
W. W. Fowler, The Roman Festi-
vals, 38, 44. The song of the Salii
mentioned Saeturnus,god of sowing.
It appears also to have been their
function to expel the Mamurius
Veturius in spring. Servius ad Aen.
viii. 285, says that the Salii were
founded by Morrius, king of Veii.

According to Frazer, Morrius is
etymologically equivalent to Ma-
murius— Mars. He even suggests
that Morris may possibly belong to
the same group of words.

3 Cf. Appendix J. In other dances
a performer stands on a similar
' knot ' or Stern of swords. Mayer,
230,suggests thatthis may represent
the triumph of summer, which seems
a little far-fetched.

* Mayer, 243 ; O. Wittstock, in
Sievers-Festgabe, 349.

6 Grimm, i. 304, gives the follow-
ing as communicated to him by
J. M. Kemble, from the mouth of
an old Yorkshireman : ' In some
parts of northern England, in York-
shire, especially Hallamshire, popu-
lar customs show remnants of the

204

FOLK DRAMA

hoff after a seventeenth-century writer. And here the figure
has the significant name of la degollada, ' the beheading V

worship of Fri eg. In the neighbour-
hood of Dent, at certain seasons of
the year, especially autumn, the
country folk hold a procession and
perform old dances, one called the
giants dance : the leading giant
they name Woden, and his wife
Frigga, the principal action of the
play consisting in two swords being
swung and clashed together about
the neck of a boy without hurting
him.' There is nothing about this
in the account of Teutonic mytho-
logy in J. M. Kemble's own Saxons
in England. I do not believe that
the names of Woden and Frigga
were preserved in connexion with
this custom continuously from
heathen times. Probably some
antiquary had introduced them ;
and in error, for there is no reason

to suppose that the ' clown ' and
' woman ' of the sword-dance were
ever thought to represent gods.
But the description of the business
with the swords is interesting.

1 Miillenhoff, Z.f. d. A. xviii. II,
quoting Covarubias, Tesoro della
tengua castellana (161 1), s.v. Danza
de Espadas : ' una mudanza que
llaman la degollada, porque cercan
el cuello del que los guia con las
espadas.' With these sword man-
oeuvres should be compared the
use of scythes and flails in the
mock sacrifices of the harvest-field
and threshing-floor (p. 158), the
' Chop off his head' of the ' Oranges
and Lemons' game (p. 1 51), and
the ancient tale of Wodan and the
Mowers.

CHAPTER X
THE MUMMERS' PLAY

[Bibliographical Note.— The subject is treated by T. F. Ordish, English
Folk-Drama in Folk-Lore, ii. 326, iv. 162. The Folk-Lore Society has
in preparation a volume on Folk-Drama to be edited by Mr. Ordish
(F. L. xiii. 296). The following is a list of the twenty-nine printed
versions upon which the account of the St. George play in the present
chapter is based. The Lutterworth play is given in Appendix K.

Northumberland.

1. Newcastle. Chap-book— W. Sandys, Christmastide, 292, from Alex-
ander and the King of Egypt. A mock Play, as it is acted by the
Mummers every Christmas. Newcastle, 1788. XDivided into Acts
and Scenes.)

Cumberland.

2. Whitehaven. Chap-book— Hone, E. D. £. ii. 1646. (Practically
identical with (1).)

Lancashire.

3. Manchester. Chap-book— The Peace Egg, published by J. Wrigley,
30, Miller Street, Manchester. (Brit. Mus. 1077, g/27 (37): Acts and
Scenes : a coloured cut of each character.)

Shropshire.

4. Newport. Oral. Jackson and Burne, 484. (Called the Guisers'
(gheez-u'rz) play.)

5. Eccleshall. Oral. F. L. J. iv. 350. (Guisers' play : practically
identical with (4). I have not seen a version from Stone in W. W.
Bladen, Notes on the Folk-lore of North Staffs. : cf. F. L. xiii. 107.)

Leicestershire.

6. Lutterworth. Oral. Kelly, 53 ; Manly, i. 292 ; Leicester F. L. 130.

Worcestershire.

7. Leigh. Oral. 2 N. Q. xi. 271.

Warwickshire.

8. Newbold. Oral. F. L. x. 186 (with variants from a similar Rugby
version).

Oxfordshire.

9. /slip. Oral. Ditchfield, 316.

10. Bampton. Oral. Ditchfield, 320.

11. Thame. Oral. 5 N. Q. ii. 503 ; Manly, i. 289.

12. Uncertain. Oral. 6 N. Q. xii. 489 ; Ashton, 128.

Berkshire.

13. Uncertain. Oral. Ditchfield, 310.

Middlesex.

14. Chiswick. Oral. 2 N. Q. x. 466.

206 FOLK DRAMA

Sussex.

15. Selmeslon. Oral. Parish, Diet, of Sussex Dialect (2nd ed. 1875),
136.

16. Hollington. Oral. 5 N. Q. x. 489.

17. Steyning. Oral. F. L.J. ii. 1. (The « Tipteerers" play.)

Hampshire.

18. St. Mary Bourne. Oral. Stevens, Hist, of St. Mary Bourne, 340.

19. Uncertain. Oral. 2 TV. 2- xh- 492.
Dorsetshire.

20. (A) Uncertain. Oral. i7. Z. i?. iii. 92; Ashton, 129.

21. (B) Uncertain. Oral. .F. Z.. /?. iii. 102.

Cornwall.

22. Uncertain. Oral. Sandys, Chrisimastide, 298. (Slightly different
version in Sandys, Christmas Carols, 174; Du Menl, Z.a Gw*. 428.J

Wales.

23. 7V«<5y. Oral. Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 740, from Tales and
Traditions of Tenby.

Ireland.

24. Belfast. Chap-book. 4 N. Q. x. 487. (' The Christmas Rhymes.')

25. Ballybrennan, Wexford. Oral. Kennedy, The Banks of the Boro,
226.

Uncertain Locality.

26. Sharpens London Magazine, i. 154. Oral.

27. Archaeologist, i. 176. Chap-book. H. Sleight, .,4 Christmas Pageant
Play or Mysterie of St. George, Alexander and the King of Egypt.
(Said to be ' compiled from and collated with several curious ancient
black-letter editions.' I have never seen or heard of a ' black-letter '
edition, and I take it the improbable title is Mr. Sleight's own.)

28. Halliwell. Oral. Popular Rhymes, 231. (Said to be the best
of six versions.)

29. F. L.J. iv. 97. (Fragment, from ' old MS.')]

The degollada figures of certain sword-dances preserve with
some clearness the memory of an actual sacrifice, abolished
and replaced by a mere symbolic dumb show. Even in these,

and still more in the other dances, the symbolism is very slight.
It is completely subordinated to the rhythmic evolutions of
a choric figure. There is an advance, however, in the direction
of drama, when in the course of the performance some one is
represented as actually slain. In a few dances of the type
discussed in the last chapter, such a dramatic episode precedes
or follows the regular figures. It is recorded in three or four
of the German examples1. A writer in the Gentleman's
Magazine describes a Yorkshire dance in which • the Bessy
interferes while they are making a hexagon with their swords,
and is killed.' Amongst the characters of this dance is

1 Mayer, 229.

THE MUMMERS' PLAY 207

a Doctor, and although the writer does not say so, it may be
inferred that the function of the Doctor is to bring the Bessy
to life again *. It will be remembered that a precisely similar
device is used in the German Shrove Tuesday plays to
symbolize the resurrection of the year in spring after its death
in winter. The Doctor^lreappears m one~oT the Durham
dances, and here there is no doubt as to the part he plays.
At a certain point the careful formations of the dance degenerate
into a fight. The parish clergyman rushes in to separate the
combatants. He is accidentally slain. There is general
lamentation, but the Doctor comes forward, and revives the
victim, and the dance proceeds 2.

It is but a step from such dramatic episodes to the more
elaborate performances which remain to be considered in the
present chapter, and which are properly to be called J>lays

i^Lther_thati^ dances^ They belong to a stage in the evolution

of drama from dance, in which the dance has been driven into
the^bacTcground and has sometimes disappeared altogether.
But they have the same characters, and especially the same
grotesques, as the dances, and the general continuity of the
two sets of performances cannot be doubted. Moreover,
though the plays differ in many respects, they have a common
incident, which may reasonably be taken to be the central
incident, in the death and revival, generally by a Doctor, of
one of the characters. And in virtue of this central incident
one is justified in classing them as forms of a folk-drama in
which the resurrection of the year is symbolized.

I take first, on account of the large amount of dancing which
remains in it, the play acted at the end of the eighteenth
century by ' The Plow Boys or Morris Dancers ' of Revesby
in Lincolnshire 3. There are seven dancers : six men, the Fool

1 Gentleman's Magazine, lxxxi clergyman took part, or whether
(181 1 ), 1.423. The dance was given a mere personage in the play is
in the north Riding from St. intended ; but see what Olaus
Stephen's day to the New Year. Magnus (App. J (i)) says about the
Besides the Bessy and the Doctor propriety of the sword-dances for
there were six lads, one of whom clerici. It will be curious if the
acted king ' in a kind of farce Christian priest has succeeded to
which consists of singing and the part of the heathen priest slain,
dancing.' first literally, and then in mimicry,

2 Bell, 178 ; cf. p. 193. I do not at the festivals.

feel sure whether the actual parish 3 Printed by Mr. T. F. Ordish in

208 FOLK DRAMA

and his five sons, Pickle Herring, Blue Breeches, Pepper
Breeches, Ginger Breeches, and Mr. Allspice 1 ; and one
woman, Cicely. The somewhat incoherent incidents are as
follows. The Fool acts as presenter and introduces the play.
He fights successively a Hobby-horse and a ' Wild Worm ' or
dragon. The dancers ' lock their swords to make the glass,'
which, after some jesting, is broken up again. The sons
determine to kill the Fool. He kneels down and makes his
will, with the swords round his neck2 ; is slain and revived by
Pickle Herring stamping with his foot. This is repeated
with variations. Hitherto, the dancers have ' footed it ' round
the room at intervals. Now follow a series of sword-dances.
During and after these the Fool and his sons in turn woo Cicely,
the Fool taking the name of ' Anthony V Pickle Herring that
of ' the Lord of Pool,' and Blue Breeches that of • the Knight
of Lee.' There is nothing particularly interesting about this
part of the play, obviously written to ' work in ' the woman
grotesque. In the course of it a morris-dance is introduced,
and a final sword-dance, with an obeisance to the master of the
house, winds up the whole.

Secondly, there are the Plough Monday plays of the east
Midlands 4. These appear in Nottinghamshire, Northampton-

.F.Z.y.vii.338, and again by Manly, earlier Anglo-German actor, John

i. 296. The MS. used appears to be Spencer. The 'spicy' names of

headed 'October Ye 20, 1779'; the other Revesby clowns are

but the performers are called ' The probably imitations of Pickle Her-

Plow Boys or Morris Dancers ' and ring.

the prologue says that they 'takes 2 The lines (197-8)

delight in Christmas toys.' I do * Our old Fool's bracelet is not

not doubt that the play belonged made of gold

to Plough Monday, which only But it is made of iron and

falls just outside the Christmas good steel '

season. suggest the vaunt of the champions

1 On the name Pickle Herring, in the St. George plays,

see W. Creizenach, Die Schauspiele 3 Is ' Anthony ' a reminiscence of

der englischen Komodianten, xciii. the Seven Champions? The Fool

It does not occur in old English says (11. 247-9), like Beelzebub in

comedy, but was introduced into the St. George plays,

Anglo-German and German farce ' Here comes I that never come

as a name for the ' fool ' or ' clown ' yet, . . .

by Robert Reynolds, the ' comic I have a great head but little

lead' of a company of English wit.'

actors who crossed to Germany in He also jests (1. 229) on his ' tool ' ;

1618. Probably it was Reynolds' cf. p. 196 n.

invention, and suggested by the * Brand, i. 278 ; Dyer, 37 ; Ditch-

sobriquet 'Stockfish' taken by an field, 47; Drake,65; Mrs. Chaworth

THE MUMMERS' PLAY

209

shire and Lincolnshire. Two printed versions are available.
The first comes from Cropwell in Nottinghamshire1. The
actors are 'the plough-bullocks.' The male characters are
Tom the Fool, a Recruiting Sergeant, and a Ribboner or
Recruit, three farm-servants, Threshing Blade, Hopper Joe2,
and the Ploughman, a Doctor, and Beelzebub 3. There are
two women, a young Lady and old Dame Jane. Tom Fool is
presenter. The Ribboner, rejected by the young Lady, enlists
as a recruit. The Lady is consoled by Tom Fool. Then enter
successively the three farm-servants, each describing his
function on the farm. Dame Jane tries to father a child on

Musters, A Cavalier Stronghold,
387. Plough Monday is the Monday
after Twelfth night, when the field
work begins. A plough is dragged
round the village and a quite made.
The survivals ef the custom are
mainly in the north, east and east
midlands. In the city, a banquet
marks the day. A Norfolk name
is 'Plowlick Monday,' and a Hunts
one ' Plough-Witching.' The plough
is called the ' Fool Plough,' ' Fond
Plough,' 'Stot Plough' or 'White
Plough ' ; the latter name probably
from the white shirts worn (cf.
p. 200). At' Cropwell, Notts, horses
cut out in black or red adorn these.
In Lincolnshire, bunches of corn
were worn in the hats. Those who
draw the plough are called 'Plough
Bullocks,' ' Boggons ' or ' Stots.'
They sometimes dance a morris- or
sword-dance, or act a play. At
Haxey, they take a leading part
in the Twelfth day ' Hood-game '
(p. 150). In Northants their faces
are blackened or reddled. The
plough is generally accompanied
by the now familiar grotesques,
' Bessy ' and the Fool or ' Captain
Cauf-Tail.' In Northants there
are two of each ; the Fools have
humps, and are known as ' Red
Jacks'; there is also a 'Master.'
In Lincolnshire, reapers, threshers,
and carters joined the procession.
A contribution to thequete is greeted
with the cry of ' Largess ! ' and a
churl is liable to have the ground
before his door ploughed up. Of

old the profits of the quete or 'plow-
gadrin ' went into the parish chest,
or as in Norfolk kept a 'plow-light'
burning in the church. A sixteenth
century pamphlet speaks of the
' sensing the Ploughess ' on Plough
Monday. Jevons, 247, calls the rite
a 'worship of the plough1; probably
it rather represents an early spring
perambulation of the fields in which
the divinity rode upon a plough,
as elsewhere upon a ship. A plough-
ing custom of putting a loaf in the
furrow has been noted. Plough
Monday has also its water rite.
The returning ploughman was liable
to be soused by the women, like the
bearer of the ' neck ' at harvest.
Elsewhere, the women must get
the kettle on before the ploughman
can reach the hearth, or pay for-
feit.

1 Printed by Mrs. Chaworth
Musters in A Cavalier Stronghold
(1890), 388, and in a French transla-
tion by Mrs. H. G. M. Murray-
Aynsley, in R. d. T. P. iv. 605.

2 'Hopper Joe' also calls himself
* old Sanky-Benny,' which invites
interpretation. Is it 'Saint Bennet'
or ' Benedict ' ?

3 ' In comes I, Beelzebub,

On my shoulder I carry my

club,
In my hand a wet leather

frying-pan ;
Don't you think I'm a funny

old man ? '
Cf. the St. George play (p. 214).

CHAMBERS. I

210 FOLK DRAMA

Tom Pool. Beelzebub knocks her down \ and kills her. The
Doctor comes in, and after some comic business about his
travels, his qualifications and his remedies2, declares Dame
Jane to be only in a trance, and raises her up. A country-
dance and songs follow, and the performance ends with
a quite. The second version, from Lincolnshire, is very-
similar 3. But there are no farm-servants, and instead of
Beelzebub is a personage called ' old Esem Esquesem,' who
carries a broom. It is he, not an old woman, who is killed
and brought to life. There are several dancers, besides the
performers ; and these include ' Bessy,' a man dressed as
a woman, with a cow's tail.

The distinction between a popular and a literary or heroic
type of personification which was noticeable in the sword-
dances persists in the folk-plays founded uj3on_ them.
Both in the Revesby play and in the Plough Monday plays7
the drama is carried on by personages resembling the
1 grotesques ' of the sword- and morris-dances 4. There are no
heroic characters. The death is of the nature of an accident
or an execution. On the other hand, in the ' mummers' play '
of St. George, the heroes take once more the leading part, and
the death, or at least one of the deaths, is caused by a fight
amongst them. This play is far more widely spread than its
rivals. It is found in all parts of England, in Wales, and in
Ireland ; in Scotland it occurs also, but here some other hero
is generally substituted as protagonist for St. George 5. The

1 ' Dame Jane ' says, n. i) but not described, probably
' My head is made of iron, belonged to the ' popular ' type.

My body made of steel, 5 Chambers, Popular Rhymes of
My hands and feet of knuckle- Scotland, 169, prints a Peebles ver-
bone, sion. Instead of George, a hero
I think nobody can make me called Galatian fights the Black
feel.' Knight. Judas, with his bag, re-
in the Lincolnshire play Beelzebub places Beelzebub. But it is the
has this vaunt. Cf. the St. George same play. Versions or fragments
play (p. 220). of it are found all over the Low-

2 The Doctor can cure 'the hipsy- lands. The performers are invari-
pipsy, palsy, and the gout ' ; cf. the ably called ' guizards.' In a Falkirk
St. George play (p. 213). version the hero is Prince George

3 Printed in French by Mrs. ofVille. Hone, E. D. B., says that
Murray Aynsley in R. d. T. P. iv. the hero is sometimes Galacheus or
609. St. Lawrence. But in another Fal-

* The farce recorded as occasion- kirk version, part of which he prints,
ally introduced at Whitby (cf. p. 192, the name is Galgacus, and of this

THE MUMMERS' PLAY 211

following account is based on the twenty-nine versions, drawn
from chap-books or from oral tradition, enumerated in the
bibliographical note. The list might, doubtless, be almost
indefinitely extended. As will soon be seen, the_lo^aJ_yaria=L-
tions of the play— are numerous. In order to make them
intelligible, I have given in full in an appendix a version from
Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This is chosen, not as a par-
ticularly interesting variant, for that it is not, but on the
contrary as being comparatively colourless. It shows very
clearly and briefly the normal structure of the play, and may be
regarded as the type from which the other versions diverge 1.
The whole perJoxmajice may be divided, for convenience of
analysis, into three parts, the Presentation, the Drama, the
Q^iie^.ln the first somebody speaks a prologue, claiming a
welcome from the s£ectators2, and then the leading characters
are in turn introduced. The second consists of a fight
followed by the intervention of a doctor to revive the slain.
In the third some supernumerary characters enter, and there
is a collection. It is the_dramatic nucleus that first requires
consideration. The leading fighter is generally St. George,
jyho alone appears in all the versions. Instead of ' St. George,'
he is sometimes called c Sir George,' and more often ' Prince
George ' or ' King George,' modifications which one may
reasonably suppose to be no older than the present Hanoverian
dynasty. At Whitehaven and at Falkirk he is * Prince George
of Ville.' George's chief opponent is usually one of two per-

both Galacheus and Galatian are 2 In F. L. x. 351, Miss Florence

probably corruptions, for Galgacus Grove describes some Christmas

or Calgacus was the leader of the mummers seen at Mullion, Cornwall,

Picts in their battle with Agricola in 1 890-1. 'Every one naturally

at the Mons Graupius (a. d. 84 ; knows who the actors are, since

Tacitus, Agricola, 29). there are not more than a few

1 Appendix K. Other versions hundred persons within several

may be conveniently compared in miles ; but no one is supposed to

Manly, i. 289; Ditchfield, 310. The know who they are or where they

best discussions of the St. George come from, nor must any one speak

* plays in general, besides Mr. Or- to them, nor they to those in the

dish's, are J. S. Udall, Christmas houses they visit. As far as I can

Mummers in Dorsetshire (F. L. R. remember the performance is silent

iii. 1. 87) ; Jackson and Burne, 482 ; and dramatic ; I have no recollec-

G. L. Gomme, Christmas Mummers tion of reciting.' The dumb show

{Nature, Dec. 23, 1897). The notes is rare and probably a sign of deca-

and introductions to the versions ta- dence, butjbe bit of rural etiquelte is

bulated above give many useful data. archaicTancTrecursln savagediama.

P 2

212 FOLK DRAMA

sonages, who are not absolutely distinct from each other1.
One is the ' Turkish Knight,' of whom a variant appears to be
the ' Prince Of Paradine ' (Manchester), or ' Paradise ' (Newport,
Eccleshall), perhaps originally ' Palestine.' I|ejLs_SQmgtimes
represented with a blackened face2. The other is variously
called ' Slasher,' ' Captain Slasher,' ' Bold Slasher,' or, by an
obvious corruption, ' Beau Slasher.' Rarer names for him are
' Bold Slaughterer' (Bampton), 'Captain Bluster' (Dorset [A]),
and ' Swiff, Swash, and Swagger' (Chiswick). His names fairly-
express his vaunting, disposition, which, however, is largely
shared by the other characters in the play. In the place of,
or as minor fighters by the side of George, the Turkish Knight
and Bold Slasher, there appear, in one version or another,
a bewildering variety of personages, of whom only a rough
classification can be attempted. Some belong to the heroic
cycles.' Such are ' Alexander ' (Newcastle, Whitehaven),
' Hector ' (Manchester), ' St. Guy ' (Newport), ' St. Giles '
(Eccleshall) 3, « St. Patrick ' (Dorset [A], Wexford), ' King
Alfred ' and ' King Cole ' (Brill), ' Giant Blunderbore ' (Brill),
' Giant Turpin ' (Cornwall). Others again are moderns who
have caught the popular imagination : ' Bold Bonaparte '
_[Leigh)^, and ' King of Prussia ' (Bampton, Oxford) 5, ' King
William ' (Brill), the ' Duke of Cumberland ' (Oxford) and the
' Duke of Northumberland ' (Islip), ' Lord Nelson ' (Stoke
Gabriel, Devon) 6, ' Wolfe ' and ' Wellington ' (Cornwall) 7,
even the ' Prince Imperial ' (Wilts) 8, all have been pressed
into the service. In some cases characters have lost their
personal names, if they ever had any, and figure merely as
' Knight,' ' Soldier,' ' Valiant Soldier,' « Noble Captain,' ' Bold
Prince,' ' Gracious King.' Others bear names which defy
explanation, ' Alonso ' (Chiswick), ' Hy Gwyer ' (Hollington),

1 In Berkshire and at Eccleshall, from English ground,' St. Guy (of
Slasher is ' come from Turkish Warwick) was probably the origi-
land.' On the other hand, the two nal form, and St. Giles a corruption,
often appear in the same version, 4 Here may be traced the influence
and even, as at Leigh, fight together, of the Napoleonic wars. In Berk-

2 Burne-Jackson, 483. shire, Slasher is a ' French officer.'

3 Ibid. 483. He appears in the B F. L. v. 88.
MSS. written by the actors as 8 Ditchfield, 12.
' Singuy ' or ' Singhiles.' Professor 7 Sandys, 153.

Skeat points out that, as he ' sprang 8 P. Tennant, Village Notes, 179.

THE MUMMERS' PLAY 213

' Marshalee ' and ' Cutting Star ' (Dorset [B]). The signifi-
cance of « General Valentine ' and ' Colonel Spring ' (Dorset
[A]) will be considered presently ; and ' Room ' (Dorset [B]),
'Little Jack,' the * Bride' and the ' Fool ' (Brill), and the « King
of Egypt ' (Newcastle, Whitehaven) have strayed in amongst
the fighters from the presenters. The fighting generally takes
the form of a duel, or a succession of duels. In the latter case,
George may fight all comers, or he may intervene to subdue
a previously successful champion. But an important point is_
that he is not always victorious. On the contrary, the versions
in which he slays and those in which he is slain are about
equal in number. In two versions (Brill, Steyning) the fight-
ing is not a duel or a series of duels, but a mette. The Brill
play, in particular, is quite unlike the usual type. A prominent
part is taken by the Dragon, with whom fight, all at once,
St. George and a heterogeneous company made up of King
Alfred and his Bride, King Cole, King William, Giant Blun-
derbore, Little Jack and a morris-dance Fool. \

Whatever the nature of the fight, the result is always the
same. One or more of the champions falls, and then appears
upon the scene a Doctor, who brings the dead to life again.
The Doctor is a comic character. He enters, boasting his
universal skill, and works his cure by exhibiting a bolus, or by
drawing out a tooth with a mighty pair of pliers. At New-
bold he is ' Dr. Brown/ at Islip ' Dr. Good ' (also called ' Jack
Spinney '.), at Brill ' Dr. Ball ' ; in Dorsetshire (A) he is an
Irishman, 'Mr. Martin' (perhaps originally 'Martyr') 'Dennis.'
More often he is nameless. Frequently the revival scene is
duplicated ; either the Doctor is called in twice, or one cure
is left to him, and another is effected by some other per-
former, such as St. George (Dorset [B]), ' Father Christmas '
(Newbold, Steyning), or the Fool (Bampton).

The central action of the play consists, then, in these two
episodes of the fight^and the resurrection ; and the ,protago=
nists, so to speak, are the heroes— a ragged troop of heroes,
certainly — and the Doctor. But just as in the sword-dances,
so in the plays, we find introduced, besides the protagonists,
a number of supernumerary figures. The nature of these, and
the part they take, must now be considered. Some of them

214 FOLK DRAMA

are by this time familiar. They are none other than the
grotesques that have haunted this discussion of the village
festivals from the very beginning, and that I have attempted
to trace to their origin in magical or sacrificial custom.
There are the woman, or lad dressed in woman's clothes, the
hobby-horse, the fool, and the black-faced man. The woman
and the hobby-horse are unmistakable ; the other two are
a little more Protean in their modern appearance. The ' Fool '
is so called only at Manchester and at Brill, where he brings
his morris-dance with him. At Lutterworth he is the
' Clown' ; in Cornwall, ' Old Squire ' ; at Newbold, ' Big Head
and Little Wits.' But I think that we may also recognize
him in the very commonly occurring figure ' Beelzebub,' also
known in Cornwall as ' Hub Bub ' and at Chiswick as ' Lord
Grubb.' The key to this identification is the fact that in
several cases Beelzebub uses the description ' big head and
little wit ' to announce himself on his arrival. Occasionally,
however, the personality of the Fool has been duplicated.
At Lutterworth Beelzebub and the Clown, at Newbold Beel-
zebub and Big Head and Little Wits appear in the same play *.
The black-faced man has in some cases lost his black face,
but he keeps it at Bampton, where he is ' Tom the Tinker,'
at Rugby, where he is ' Little Johnny Sweep,' and in a Sussex
version, where he is also a sweep 2. The analogy of the May-
day chimney-sweeps is an obvious one. "A black face was^
a feature in the mediaeval representatiojauoX- devils, and the
sweep of some plays is probably in origin identical with the
devil, black-faced_or not, of others. This is all the more so,

1 Beelzebub appears also in the horses being represented at different
Cropwell Plough Monday play; places where details of the mumming
cf. p. 209. Doubtless he once wore play have been recorded.' Nowa-
a calf-skin, like other rural ' Fools,' days, Beelzebub generally carries a
but, as far as I know, this feature has club and a ladle or frying-pan, with
dropped out. Sandys, 154, however, which he makes the quite. At
quotes ' Captain Calf-tail ' as the Newport and Eccleshall he has a
name of the ' Fool ' in an eighteenth- bell fastened on his back ; at New-
century Scotch version, and Mr. bold he has a black face. The
Gomme (Nature, Dec. 23, 1897), ' Fool ' figured in the Manchester
says 'some of the mummers, or chap-book resembles Punch,
maskers as the name implies, for- 2 See notes to Steyning play in
merly disguised themselves as ani- F. L.J. ii. I.
mals— goats, oxen, deer, foxes and

THE MUMMERS' PLAY 215

as the devil, like the sweep, usually carries a besom l. One
would expect his name, and not the Fool's, to be Beelzebub.
He is, however, ' Little Devil Dout ' or ' Doubt,' ' Little Jack
Doubt ' or ' Jack Devil Doubt.' At Leigh Little Devil Doubt
also calls himself ' Jack,'

' With my wife and family on my back ' ;

and perhaps we may therefore trace a further avatar' of this
same personage in the 'John' or 'Johnny Jack' who at
Salisbury gives a name to the whole performance2. He is
also ' Little Jack ' (Brill, St. Mary Bourne), ' Fat Jack ' (Islip),
' Happy Jack ' (Berkshire, Hollington), ' Humpty Jack ' (New-
bold). He generally makes the remark about his wife and
family. What he does carry upon his back is sometimes
a hump, sometimes a number of rag-dolls. I take it that the
hump came first, and that the dolls arose out of Jack's jocular
explanation of his own deformity. But why the hump ?
Was it originally a bag of soot ? Or the saccus with which
the German Knechte Ruperte wander in the Twelve nights ? 3
At Hollington and in a Hampshire version Jack has been
somewhat incongruously turned into a press-gang. In thJs
capacity he gets at Hollington the additional name of
1 Tommy Twing-twang.'

Having got these grotesques, traditional accompaniments
of the play, to dispose of somehow, what do the playwrights
do with them ? The simplest and most primitive method is
just to bring them in, to show them to the spectators when
the righting is over. Thus Beelzebub, like the Fool at one
point in the Revesby play, often comes in with

1 Here come I ; ain't been yit,
Big head and little wit.'

' Ain't been yit ! ' Could a more naYve explanation of the
presence of a ' stock ' character on the stage be imagined ?

1 Mr. Gomme, in Nature for also to make a circle for the players,

Dec. 23, 1897, finds in this broom but here it may have merely taken

1 the magic weapon of the witch ' the place of a sword,

discussed by Pearson, ii. 29. Prob- 2 Parish, Diet, of Sussex Dialect,

ably, however, it was introduced 136. The mummers are called

into the plays for the purposes of 'John Jacks.'

the quite; cf. p. 217. It is used a Cf. p. 268, n. 4.

216 FOLK DRAMA

Similarly in Cornwall the woman is worked in by making
'Sabra,' a persona muta, come forward to join St. George1. In
the play printed in Sharpens London Magazine the ' Hobby-
horse ' is led in. Obviously personages other than the tradi-
tional four can be introduced in the same way, at the bidding
of the rustic fancy. Thus at Bampton ' Robin Hood ' and ' Little
John ' briefly appear, in both the Irish plays and at Tenby
' Oliver Cromwell,' at Belfast ' St. Patrick,' at Steyning the
1 Prince of Peace.'

Secondly, the supernumeraries may be utilized, either as
presenters of the main characters or for the purposes of the
gue/elat the end. Thus at Leigh the performance is begun
by Little Devil Doubt, who enters with his broom and sweeps
a 'room ' or 'hall' for the actors, just as in the sword-dances
a preliminary circle is made with a sword upon the ground 2.
In the Midlands this is the task of the woman, called at Islip
and in Berkshire ' Molly,' and at Bright-Walton ' Queen
Mary V Elsewhere the business with the broom is omitted ;
but there is nearly always a short prologue in which an appeal
is made to the spectators for ' room.' This prologue may be
spoken, as at Manchester by the Fool, or as at Lutterworth
by one of the fighters. The commonest presenter, however,
is a personification of the festal season at which the plays are
usually performed, ' Old Father Christmas.'

' Here comes I, Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not,
I hope Old Father Christmas will never be forgot.'

At St. Mary Bourne Christmas is accompanied by ' Mince-
Pie,' and in both the Dorset versions, instead of calling for
' room,' he introduces ' Room ' as an actual personage. Simi-
larly, at Newport and Eccleshall, the prologue speaker receives
the curious soubriquet of ' Open-the-Door.' After the pro-

1 Sandys, 301. 3 Ditchfield, 315. 'The play in

s Cf. Capulet, vs\ Romeo and Juliet, this village is performed in most

i. 5. 28 ' A hah, a hall ! give room ! approved fashion, as the Rector has

and foot it, girls ' ; and Puck who taken the matter in hand, coached

precedes the dance of fairies in the actors in their parts, and taught

Midsummer Night 's Dream,v. 1. 396 them some elocution.' This sort

' I am sent with broom before, of thing, of course, is soon fatal to

To sweep the dust behind the folk-drama.

door,

THE MUMMERS' PLAY 217

logue, the fighters are introduced. They stand in a clump
outside the circle, and in turns step forward and strut round
it l. Each is announced, by himself or by his predecessor or
by the presenter, with a set of rhymes closely parallel to
those used in the sword-dances. With the fighters generally
comes the ' King of Egypt ' (occasionally corrupted into the
1 King of England '), and the description of St. George often
contains an allusion to his fight with the dragon and the
rescue of Sabra, the King of Egypt's daughter. In one or
two of the northern versions (Newcastle, Whitehaven) the
King of Egypt is a fighter ; generally he stands by. In
one of the Dorset versions (A) he is called ' Anthony.'
Sabra appears only in Cornwall, and keeps silence. The
Dragon fights with St. George in Cornwall, and also, as we
have seen, in the curious Brill milie. , ^_

The performance, naturally, ends with a quite, This takes
various forms. Sometimes the presenter, or the whole body
of actors, comes forward, and wishes prosperity to the house-
hold. Beelzebub, with his frying-pan or ladle, goes round to
gather in the contributions. In the version preserved in
Sharpe s London Magazine, this is the function of a special
personage, ' Boxholder.' In a considerable number of cases,
however, the quite is preceded by a singular action on the
part of Little Devil Dout. He enters with his broom, and
threatens to sweep the whole party out, or ' into their graves,'
if money is not given. In Shropshire and Staffordshire he
sweeps up the hearth, and the custom is probably connected
with the superstition that it is unlucky to remove fire or
ashes from the house on Christmas Day. ' Dout ' appears
to be a corruption of ' Do out V

Another way of working in the grotesques and other super-
numeraries is to give them minor parts in the drama itself.
Father Christmas or the King of Egypt is utilized as a sort

1 Burne-Jackson, 484 ; Manly, i. Christmas song, sung by ' Little
289. David Daubt ' with black face, skin

2 Burne-Jackson, 402, 410 ; F. L. jcoat and broom. At Bradford they
iv. 162 ; Dyer, 504. The broom is ; ' sweep out the Old Year ' ; at
used in Christmas and New Year Wakefield they sweep up dirty
quetes in Scotland and Yorkshire, hearths. In these cases the notion
even when there is no drama, of threatening to do the unlucky
Northall 205, gives a Lancashire thing has gone.

218 FOLK DRAMA

of chorus, to cheer on the fighters, lament the vanquished, and
summon the Doctor. At Newbold the woman, called ' Moll
Finney,' plays a similar part, as mother of the Turkish Knight.
At Stoke Gabriel, Devon, the woman is the Doctor's wife l.
Finally, in three cases, a complete subordinate dramatic epi-
sode is introduced for their sake. At Islip, after the main
drama is concluded, the presenter Molly suddenly becomes
King George's wife 'Susannah.' She falls ill, and the Doctor's
services are requisitioned to cure her. The Doctor rides in,
not on a hobby-horse, but on one of the disengaged
characters who plays the part of a horse. In Dorsetshire
the secondary drama is quite elaborate. In the 'A' version
' Old Bet ' calls herself • Dame Dorothy,' and is the wife of
Father Christmas, named, for the nonce, ' Jan.' They quarrel
about a Jack hare, which he wants fried and she wants
roasted. He kills her, and at the happy moment the Doctor
is passing by, and brings her to life again. Version ' B ' is
very similar, except that the performance closes by Old Bet
bringing in the hobby-horse for Father Christmas to mount.

I do not think that I need further labour the affiliation of
the St. George plays to the sword-dances. Placed in a series,
as I have placed them in these chapters, the two sets of per-
formances show a sufficiently obvious continuity. They are
held together by the use of the swords, by their common
grotesques, and by the episode of the Doctor, which connects
them also with the German Shrovetide and Whitsun folk-
ceremonies. They are /properly called folk-drama, because
they are derived, with the minimum of literary intervention,
from the dramatic tendencies latent in folk-festivals of a very
primitive type. They are the outcome of the instinct of play,
manipulating for its own purposes the mock sacrifice and
other ddbris of extinct ritual. Their central incident symbo-
lizes the renouveau, the annual death of the year or the fertili-
zation spirit and its annual resurrection in spring 2. To this

1 Ditchfield, 12. An ' Old Bet ' castle chap-book promises a' Dives'

is mentioned in 5 N. Q. iv. 511, as who never appears. Was this the

belonging to a Belper version. The woman ? In the Linton in Craven

woman is worked in with various sword-dance, she has the similar

ingenuity, but several versions have name of ' Miser.'

lost her. The prologue to the New- 2 I hardly like to trace a remi-

THE MUMMERS' PLAY 219

have become attached some of those heroic cantilenae which,
as the early mediaeval chroniclers tell us, existed in the mouths
of the chori iuvemim side by side with the cantilenae of the
minstrels. The symbolism of the renouveau is preserved
unmistakably enough in the episode of the Doctor, but the
cantilenae have been to some extent modified by the^compara-
tively late literary element, due perhaps to that universa
go-between of literature and the folk, the village school-
master. The genuine national heroes, a Stercatherus or a
Galgacus, have given way to the 'worthies' and the 'champions
of Christendom,' dear to Holophernes. The literary tradition
has also perhaps contributed to the transformation of the
chorus or semi-dramatic dance into drama pure and simple.
In the St. George plays dancing holds a very subordinate
place, far more so than in the ' Plow-boys ' play of Rev
Dances and songs are occasionally introduced before the
quite, but rarely during the main performance. In the eccen-
tric Brill version, however, a complete morris-dance appears.
And of course it must be borne in mind that the fighting
itself, with its gestures and pacings round the circle and
clashing of swords, has much more the ejffect^of a sword-
dance^ than of a jugular fight. So far asit is a fight, the
question arises^ whether we ought to_gee_-iri_i|, besides the
heroic element introduced by the cantilenae, any trace of the
mimic contest b^w^enjwjntgr -and., sum mer, which is found
here and there, alternating with the resurreCtion~3rama, as

niscence of the connexion with the Cf. Thomas Hardy, The Return of

renouveau in the ' General Valen- the Native, bk. ii. ch. 3 : ' The girls

tine' and 'Colonel Spring' who could never be brought to respect

fight and are slain in the Dorset (A) tradition in designing and decorat-

version ; but there the names are. ing the armour : they insisted on

Mr. Gomme {Nature for Dec. 23, attaching loops and bows of silk

1897) finds in certain mumming and velvet in any situation pleasing

costumes preserved in the Anthro- to their taste. Gorget, gusset, bas-

pological Museum at Cambridge sinet, cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all

and made of paper scales, a repre- alike in the view of these feminine

sentation of leaves of trees. Mr. eyes were practicable spaces whereon

Ordish, I believe, finds in them the to sew scraps of fluttering colour.' The

scales of the dragon (F. L. iv. 163). usual costume of the sword-dancers,

Some scepticism may be permitted as we have seen (p. 200), was a

as to these conjectures. Injnjisi clean white smock, and probably

places the dress represents little that of the mummers is based upon

but rustic notions of the ornamental, this.

220 FOLK DRAMA

a symbolical representation of the renouveau. The fight does
not, of course, in itself stand in any need of such an explana-
tion ; but it is suggested by a singular passage which in
several versions is put in the mouth of one or other of the
heroes. St. George, or the Slasher, or the Turkish Knight,
is made to boast something as follows :

' My arms are made of iron, my body 's made of steel,
My head is made of beaten brass, no man can make me feel.'

It does not much matter who speaks these words in the
versions of Holophernes, but there are those who think that
they originally belonged to the representative of winter, and
contained an allusion to the hardness of the frost-bound earth1.
Personally I do not see why they should refer to anything but
the armour which a champion might reasonably be supposed
to wear.

A curious thing about the St. George play is the width of
its range. All the versions, with the possible exception of that
found at Brill, seem to be derived from a common type. They
are spread over England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and
only in the eastern counties do they give way to the partly,
though not wholly, independent Plough Monday type. Un-
fortunately, the degeneracy of the texts is such that any closer
investigation into their inter-relations or into the origin and
transmission of the archetype would probably be futile.
Something, however, must be said as to the prominence, at
any rate outside Scotland, of the character of St. George. As
far as I can see, the play owes nothing at all to John Kirke's
stage-play of The Seven Champions of Christendom, printed
in 1630^ It is possible, however, that it may be a develop-
ment of a sword-dance in which, as in the Shetland dance, the
' seven champions ' had usurped the place of more primitive
heroes. If so the six champions, other than St. George, have

1 T. F. Ordish, in F. L. iv. 158. worth Smith, was amongst the

2 Printed in The Old English manuscripts destroyed by War-
Drama (1830), vol. iii. Burne-Jack- burton's cook, and a Bartholomew
son, 490, think that ' the masque Fair ' drolP' of St. George and
owes something to the play,' but the Dragon is alluded to in the
the resemblances they trace are Theatre of Compliments, 1688
infinitesimal. A play of St. George (Fleay, C. H. ii. 25 1 ; Hazlitt,

for England, by William or Went- Manual, 201).

THE MUMMERS' PLAY

221

singularly vanished l. In any case, there can have been no
' seven champions,' either in sword-dance or mummers' play,
before Richard Johnson brought together the scattered legends
of the national heroes in his History of the Seven Champions
in 1596 2. This fact presents no difficulty, for the archetype
of our texts need certainly not be earlier than the seventeenth
century 3. By this time the literary dramatic tradition was
fully established, even in the provinces, and it may well have I
occurred to Holophernes to convert the sword-dance into the
semblance of a regular play.

On the other hand, the mediaeval period had its dramatic
or semi-dramatic performances in which St. George figured,
and possibly it is to these, and not to the ' seven champions,'
that his introduction into the sword-dance is due. These
performances generally took the form of a ' riding ' or proces-

1 In the Dorset (A) version, the
king of Egypt is ' Anthony ' and the
doctor ' Mr. Martin Dennis.' Con-
ceivably these are reminiscences of
St. Anthony of Padua and St. Denys
of France. The Revesby Plough
Monday play (cf. p. 208) has also
an ' Anthony.' The ' Seven Cham-
pions ' do not appear in the English
sword-dances described in ch.ix, but
the morris-dancers at Edgemond
wake used to take that name (Burne-
Jackson, 491). Mrs. Nina Sharp
writes in F. L. R. iii. I. 113 : ' I was
staying at Minety, near Malmes-
bury, in Wilts (my cousin is the
vicar), when the mummers came
round (1876). They went through
a dancing fight in two lines opposed
to each other — performed by the
Seven Champions of Christendom.
There was no St. George, and they
did not appear to have heard of the
Dragon. When I inquired for him,
they went through the performance
of drawing a tooth — the tooth pro-
duced, after great agony, being a
horse's. The mummers then carried
into the hall a bush gaily decorated
with coloured ribbons . . . [They]
were all in white smock frocks and
masks. At Acomb, near York, I
saw very similar mummers a few
years ago, but they distinguished

St. George, and the Dragon was a
prominent person. There was the
same tooth-drawing, and I think the
Dragon was the patient, a;id was
brought back to life by the opera-
tion.' I wonder whether the ' Seven
Champions' were named or whether
Mrs. Sharp inferred them. Any-
how, there could not have been
seven at Minety, without St. George.
The 'bush' is an interesting fea-
ture. According to C. R. Smith,
Isle of Wight Words {Eng.Dial.Soc.
xxxii. 63) the mummers are known
in Kent as the ' Seven Champions.'

2 Entered on the Stationers1 Re-
gisters in 1596. The first extant
edition is dated 1597. Johnson first
introduced Sabra, princess of Egypt,
into the story; in the mediaeval
versions, the heroine is an unnamed
princess of Silena in Libya. The
mummers' play follows Johnson, and
makes it Egypt. On Johnson was
based Heylin's History of St. George
(1631 and 1633), and on one or both
of these Kirke's play.

3 Jackson and Burne, 489: ' Miss
L. Toulmin Smith . . . considers
that the diction and composition of
the [Shropshire] piece, as we now
have it, date mainly from the seven-
teenth century.'

}

222 FOLK DRAMA

sion on St. George's day, April 33. Such ridings may, of
course, have originally, like the Godiva processions or the
midsummer shows, have preserved the memory of the pre-
Christian perambulations of the fields in spring, but during
the period for which records are available they were rather
municipal celebrations of a semi-ecclesiastical type. St. George
was the patron saint of England, and his day was hon6ured
as one of the greater feasts, notably at court, where the
chivalric order of the Garter was under his protection 1. The
conduct of the ridings was generally, from the end of the
fourteenth century onwards, in the hands of a guild, founded
not as a trade guild, but as a half social, ha^f religious fraternity,
for the worship of the saint, and the mutual aid and good
fellowship of its members. The fullest accounts preserved
are from INorwlcEj where the guild or company of St. George
was founded in 1385, received a charter from Henry V in 1416,
and by 1451 had obtained a predominant share in the govern-
ment of the city 2. The records of this guild throw a good
deal of light on the riding. The brethren and ' sustren ' had
a chapel in the choir of the cathedral, and after the Reforma-
tion held their feasts in a chapel of the common hall of the
city, which had formerly been the church of a Dominican
convent. The riding was already established by 1408 when
the court of the guild ordered that ' the George shall go in
procession and make a conflict with the Dragon and keep his
estate both days.' The George was a man in ' coat armour
beaten with silver,' and had his club-bearer, henchmen, min-
strels and banners. He was accompanied by the Dragon, the
guild-priest, and the court and brethren of the guild in red
and white capes and gowns. The procession went to 'the
wood ' outside the city, and here doubtless the conflict with
the dragon took place. By 1537 there had been added to the

1 Dyer, 193 ; Anstis, Register of tices Illustrative of Municipal Pa-
the Garler(l724),'n. 38 ; E. Ashmole, geants and Processions (with plates,
Hist, of the Garter (ed. 1672), 188, publ. C. Muskett, Norwich, 1850) ;
467 ; (ed. 1715), 130, 410. Toulmin Smith, English Gilds

2 F. Blomefield, Hist, of Norfolk (E. E. T. S.), 17, 443 ; Kelly, 48.
(1805), iv. 6, 347 ; Mackerell, MS. Hudson andTingey, Cal. of Records
Hist, of Norfolk (1737), quoted in of Norwich (1898), calendar many
Norfolk Archaeology y iii. 315 ; No- documents of the guild.

THE MUMMERS' PLAY 223

dramatis personae St. Margaret, also called ' the lady/ who
apparently aided St. George in his enterprise1. Strange to
say, the guild survived the Reformation. In 1553, tFe court"
ordered, ' there shall be neither George nor Margaret, but for
pastime the dragon to come and show himself, as in other
years.' But the feast continued, and in spite of an attempt
to get rid of him under the Long Parliament, the Dragon
endured until 1733 when the guild was dissolved. Eighteenth-
century witnesses describe the procession as it then existed.
The Dragon was carried by a man concealed in its body. It
was of basket work and painted cloth, and could move or
spread its wings, and distend or contract its head. The ranks
were kept by ' whifflers ' who juggled with their swords, and
by ' Dick Fools,' in motley and decked with cats' tails and
small bells. There is one more point of interest about the
Norwich guild. In the fifteenth centurynrFln^Iu^ed~manv
persons of distinction in Norfolk. Sir John Fastolf gave it
an 'angell silver and guy It.' And amongst the members in
1496 was Sir John Paston. I have already quoted the lament
in the Paston Letters over William Woode, the keeper, whom
the writer 'kepyd thys iij yer to pleye Seynt Jorge and
Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham,' and who at
a critical moment went off to Bernysdale and left his master
in the lurch 2. I have also identified his Robin Hood play,
and now it becomes apparent where he played ' Seynt Jorge.'
It is curious how the fragments of the wreckage of time fit
into one another. The riding of the George is not peculiar
to Norwich. We find it at Leicester3, at Coventry4, at_Strat

1 Hartland, iii. 58, citing Jacobus men in 1424. Probably there was
a Voragine, Legenda Aurea, xciii, a riding. In any case, at the
gives the story of St. Margaret, and visit of Prince Edward in 1474,
the appearance of the devil to her there was a pageant or mystire
in the shape of a dragon. She was mimd ' upon the Conddite in the
in his mouth, but made the sign of Crosse Chepyng' of ' seint George
the cross, and he burst asunder. armed and Kynges doughf knelyng

2 Cf. p. 177. afore hym wl a lambe and the fader

3 Kelly, 37. The ' dressyng of and the moder beyng in a toure
the dragon' appears in the town a boven beholdyng seint George
accounts for 1536. The guild had savyng their doughf from the
dropped the riding, even before the dragon.' There was a similar pa-
Reformation, geant at the visit of Prince Arthur

4 Harris, 97, 190, 277 ; Kelly, 41. in 1498.
The guild was formed by journey-

224 FOLK DRAMA

ford^.at Chester2, at York, at Dublin3. An elaborate pro-
gramme for the Dublin procession is preserved. It included
an emperor and empress with their train, St. George on horse-
back, the dragon led by aline and the king and queen of Dele.
But no princess is mentioned. The ' may ' or maiden figured
at York, however, and there was also a St. Christopher. At
other places, such as Reading, Aston 4 and Louth 5, an eques-
trian figure, called a ' George,' is known to have stood on
a ' loft ' in the church, and here, too, an annual ' riding ' may
be presumed.

There is no jproof that the dramatic element in these
' ridings ' was anything more than a mystfre minii, or
pageant in dumb show. On the other hand, there were places
where the performance on St. George's day took the form
of a regular miracle-play. I The performance described by
Collier as taking place before Henry V and the Emperor
Sigismund at Windsor in 141 6 turns out on examination of
Collier's authority to be really a ' soteltie,' a cake or raised
pie of elaborate form. But the town of Lydd had its
St. George play in 1456, and probably throughout the
century ; while in 1490 the chaplain of the guild of St. George
at New Romney went to see this Lydd play with a view to
reproducing it at the sister town. In 151 1 again a play of
St. George is recorded to have been held at Bassingbourne in
Cambridgeshire, not on St. George's, but on St. Margaret's day6.

Obviously the subject-matter of all these pageants anoL
miracles was provided by the familiar ecclesiastical legend of_

f5-' kelly^ST' Hist, of Reading, 221, the account

8 Morris, 139, 168; Fenwick, for setting-up a 'George' in 1 536.

Hist, of Chester, 372 ; Dyer, 195. Dugdale, Hist, of Warwickshire,

The Fraternity of St. George was 928, has a notice of a legacy

founded for the encouragement of in 1526 by John Arden to Aston

shooting in 1537. They had a cha- church of his ' white harneis ... for

pel with a George in the choir of a George to were it, and to stand

St. Peter's. St. George's was the on his pewe, a place made for it.'
great day for races on the Rood- 5 R.W. Goulding, Louth Records,

dee. In 1610 was a famous show, quotes from the churchwardens' ac-

wherein St. George was attended by counts for 1538 payments for taking

Fame, Mercury, and various allego- down the image of St. George and

rical figures. his horse.

Cf. Representations, s. v. York, 8 Representations, s. v. Windsor,

Dublin. Lydd, New Romney, Bassing-

4 Dyer, 194, gives from Coates, bourne.

■■ Du

THE MUMMERS' PLAY

St. George the dragon-slayer, with which was occasionally
interwoven the parallel legend of St. Margaret1. Similar
performances can be traced on the continent. There was one
at Mons called le luniegon2. Rabelais describes one at Metz,
of which, however, the hero was not St. George, but yet
another dragon -slayer, St. Clement3. There is no need to
ascribe to them a folk^origiru-akhough tEalldragnn-siaying
champion is. a. common per§pnagp_ln fnlV-talf4, |They belong
to the cycle of religious drama, which is dealt with in the
second volume of this book.' And although in Shropshire
at least they seem to have been preserved in a village stage-

1 For the legend, see Acta Sanc-
torum, April, iii. 101 ; Jacobus a
Voragine, Legenda Aurea (1280),
Iviii ; E. A. W. Budge, The Martyr-
dom and Miracles of St. George
of Cappadocia : the Coptic Texts
(Oriental Text Series, 1888). In
Rudder, Hist, of Gloucestershire,
461, and Gloucester F. L. 47, is
printed an English version of the
legend, apparently used for read-
ing in church on the Sunday
preceding St. George's day, April
23. Cf. also Gibbon (ed. Bury), ii.
472, 568 ; Hartland, Perseus, iii. 38 ;
Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the
Middle Ages, 266 ; Zockler, s. v.
St. Georg, in Herzog and Plitt's
Encyclopedia; F. Gorres, Ritter
St. Georg {n Geschichte, Legende
undKunst,'mZeitschriftfurwissen-
schaftliche Theologie,xxx (1887), 54;
F. Vetter, Introduction to Reimbot
von Durne's Der heilige Georg
(1896 '. Gibbon identified St. George
with the Arian bishop George of
Cappadocia, and the dragon with
Athanasius. This view has been
recently revived with much learning
by J. Friedrich in Sitzb. Akad. Wiss.
Munchen (phil.-h2st.JCl.), 1 899, ii. 2.
Pope Gelasius (t495) condemned
the Passio as apocryphal and here-
tical, but he admits the historical
existence of the saint, whose cult
indeed was well established both in
East and West in the fifth century.
Budge tries to find an historical
basis for him in a young man at

CHAMBERS. I (

Nicomedia who tore down an edict
during the persecution of Diocletian
(+3°3)> an<l identifies his torturer
Dadianus with the co-emperor
Galerius.

2 Du Menl, La Com. 98. He
quotes Novidius, Sacri Fasti (ed.
1559), bk. vi. f. 48™:

'perque annos duci monet [rex]
in spectacula casum
unde datur multis annua
scena locis.'
A fifteenth-century Augsburg
miracle-play of St. George is
printed by Keller, Fastnachtsspiele,
No. 125 ; for other Continental data
cf. Creizenach, i. 231, 246; Julle-
ville, Les Myst. ii. 10, 644 ; D'An-
cona. i. 104.

3 Rabelais, Gargantua, iv. 59.
The dragon was called Graoully,
and snapped its jaws, like the
Norwich ' snap-dragons ' and the
English hobby-horse.

4 Cf. p. 138. The myth has
attached itself to other undoubtedly
historical persons besides St.George
(Bury, Gibbon, ii. 569). In his case
it is possibly due to a misunderstood
bit of rhetoric. In the Coptic version
of the legend edited by Budge
(p. 223), Dadianus is called 'the
dragon of the abyss.' There is no
literal dragon in this version : the
princess is perhaps represented by
Alexandra, the wife of Dadianus,
whom George converts. Cf. Hart-
land, Perseus, iii. 44.

226 FOLK DRAMA

play up to quite a recent date \ they obviously do not directly
survive in the folk-play with which we are concerned. As
far as I know, that nowhere takes place on St. George's day.
The Dragon is very rarely a character, and though St. George's
traditional exploit is generally mentioned, it is, as that very
mention shows, not the motive of the action. On the
other hand the legend, in its mediaeval form, has no room for
the episode of the Doctor 2. At the same time the Dragon
does sometimes occur, and the traditional exploit is mentioned,
and therefore if any one chooses to say that the fame of
St. George in the guild celebrations as well as the fame of the
' seven champions ' romance determined his choice as the hero
of the later sword-dance rhymes, I do not see that there is
much to urge against the view 3.

With regard to the main drift of this chapter, the criticism
presents itself; if the folk-plays are essentially a celebration
of the renouveau of spring, how is it that the performances
generally take place in mid-winter at Christmas ? The answer
is that, as will be shown in the next chapter, none of the
Christmas folk-customs are proper to mid-winter. They have
been attracted by the ecclesiastical feast from the seasons
which in the old European calendar preceded and followed it,
from the beginning of winter and the beginning of summer or
spring. The folk-play has come with the rest. But the
transference has not invariably taken place. The Norfolk
versions belong not to Christmas but to Plough Monday,
which lies immediately outside the Christmas season proper,
and is indeed, though probably dislocated from its primitive
date, the earliest of the spring feasts. The St. George play
itself is occasionally performed at Easter, and even perhaps on
May-day, whilst versions, which in their present form contain
clear allusions to Christmas, yet betray another origin by the
title which they bear of the ' Pace-eggers" or ' Pasque-eggers"

1 Cf. ch. xxiv, as to these plays. years. But I do not think that this

2 I ought perhaps to say that in episode occurs in any of the Euro-
one of the Coptic versions of the pean versions of the legend,
legend St. George is periodically 3 ' Sant George and the dragon '
slain and brought back to life by are introduced into a London May-
a miracle during the space of seven game in 1559 (ch. viii).

THE MUMMERS' PLAY

227

play1. Christmas, however, has given to the play the charac-
teristic figure of Old Father Christmas. And the players are
known as ' mummers ' and ' guisers,' or, in Cornwall, ' geese-
dancers,' because their performance was regarded as a variety
of the 'mumming' or 'disguising' which, as we shall see,
became a regular name for the Christmas revel or quite 2.

1 See the Manchester Peace Egg
chap-book. At Manchester, Lang-
dale, and, I believe, Coniston, the
play is performed at Easter: cf.
Halliwell, Popular Rhymes, 231.
The Steyning play is believed to
have been given at May-day as well
as Christmas. Of course, so far as
this goes,the transference might have
been from Christmas, not to Christ-
mas, but the German analogies
point the other way. The Cheshire
performance on All Souls' Day
(Nov. 2), mentioned by Child, v.
291, is, so far as I know, exceptional.

2 Cf. ch. xvii : In the Isle of

Wight the performers are called
the ' Christmas Boys ' (C. R. Smith,
Isle of Wight Words, in E. D. S.
xxxii. 63). The terms ' Seven Cham-
pions' (Kent) and 'John Jacks'
(Salisbury) have already been ex-
plained. The Steyning ' Tipteers '
or ' Tipteerers ' may be named from
the 'tips' collected in the quite.
The ' Guisers ' of Staffordshire be-
come on the Shropshire border
' Morris-dancers,5 ' Murry-dancers,'
or ' Merry-dancers ' — a further
proof of the essential identity of
the morris- or sword-dance with the
play.

CHAPTER XI
THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

{Bibliographical Note. — I have largely followed the conclusions of
A. Tille, Deutsche Weihnacht (1893) and Yule and Christmas (1899).
The Roman winter feasts are well treated by J. Marquardt and T.
Mommsen, Handbuch der romischen Alterthiimer (3rd ed. 1 881-8), vol. vii ;
W. W. Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (1899) ;
G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Rbyier (1902); and the Christian
feasts by L. Duchesne, Origines du Culte chritien (2nd ed. 1898). On
the history of Christmas, H. Usener, Das Weihnachtsfest, in Religions-
geschichtliche Untersuchungen, vol. i (1889), and F. C. Conybeare's intro-
duction to The Key. of Truth (1898) should also be consulted. Much
information on the Kalends customs is collected by M. Lipenius, Strenarum
Historia, in J. G. Graevius, Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum (1699),
vol. xii. I have brought together a number of ecclesiastical references to
the Kalends, from the third to the eleventh century, in Appendix N.]

So far this study has concerned itself, on the one hand
with the general character of the peasant festivals, on the
other with the special history of such of these as fall within
the summer cycle of the agricultural year, from ploughing to
harvest. The remaining chapters will approach the corre-
sponding festivals, centring around Christmas, of winter.
These present a somewhat more difficult problem, partly
because their elements are not quite so plainly agricultural,
partly because of the remarkable dislocations which the
development and clash of civilizations have brought about.

It must, I think, be taken as established that the Germano-
Keltic tribes had no primitive mid-winter feast, corresponding
directly to the modern Christmas1. They had no solstitial
feast, for they knew nothing of the solstices. And although
they had a winter feast of the dead, belonging rather to the
domestic than to the elemental side of cult, this probably
fell not at the middle, but at the beginning of the season.
It was an aspect in the great feast with which not the winter
only but the Germano-Keltic year began. This took place

1 Tille, Y. and C. 78, 107 ; Rhys, C. AT. 519 : cf. ch. v.

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER 229

when the advance of snow and frost drove the warriors back
from foray and the cattle from the pastures. The scarcity of
fodder made the stall-feeding of the whole herd an im-
possibility, and there was therefore an economic reason for
a great slaughtering. This in its turn led to a great banquet
on the fresh meat, and to a great sacrifice, accompanied with
the usual perambulations, water-rites and fire-rites which
sacrifice to the deities of field and flock entailed 1. The
vegetation spirit would again be abroad, no longer, as in
spring or summer, in the form of flowers and fresh green
boughs, but in that of the last sheaf or ' kern-baby ' saved
from harvest, or in that of such evergreens or rarer blossoms
as might chance to brave the snows. The particular ' inten-
tion ' of the festival would be to secure the bounty of the
divine powers for the coming year, and a natural superstition
would find omens for the whole period in the events of the
initial day. The feast, however, would be domestic, as well
as seasonal. The fire on the hearth was made ' new,' and
beside it the fathers, resting from the toils of war, or herding
or tillage, held jollification with their children. Nor were
the dead forgotten. Minni were drunk in honour of ances-
tors and ancestral deities ; and a share of the banquet was
laid out for such of these as might be expected, in the whirl
of the wintry storm, to revisit the familiar house-place.

Originally, no doubt, the time of the feast was determined
by the actual closing of the war- ways and the pastures. Just
as the first violet or some migratory bird of March was
hailed for the herald of summer, so the first fall of snow gave
the signal that winter was at hand 2. In the continental home
of the Germano-Keltic tribes amongst the forests of central
Europe this would take place with some regularity about the
middle of November 3. A fixed date for the feast could only
arise when, at some undefined time, the first calendar, the
' three-score-day-tide ' calendar of unknown origin, was intro-

1 Tille, Y. and C. 18 ; D. W. 6. rent.'

Bede,Z?. T.R. 15, gives Blot-monath 2 Burton, 15, notes a tradition at

as the Anglo-Saxon name for No- Disley, in Cheshire, that the local

vember, and explains it as ' mensis wake was formerly held after the

immolationum, quia in ea pecora first fall of snow,

quae occisuri erant, Diis suis vove- 3 Tille, Y. and C. 18.

230

FOLK DRAMA

duced 1. Probably it was thenceforward held regularly upon a
day corresponding to either November the nth or the 12th in
our reckoning. If it is accurately represented by St. Martin's
day, it was the nth2, if by the Manx Samhain, the 12th3.
It continued to begin the year, and also the first of the six
tides into which that year was divided. As good fortune will
have it, the name of that tide is preserved to us in the Gothic
term Iiuleis for November and December4, in the Anglo-
Saxon Giuli or Geola which, according to Bede, applied both to
December and to January 5, and in Yule, the popular designa-
tion, both in England and Scandinavia, of Christmas itself6.
The meaning of this name is, however, more doubtful. The
older philology, with solstices running in its brain, supposed
that it applied primarily to a mid-winter feast, and con-
nected it with the Anglo-Saxon hweol, a wheel7. Bede
himself, learned in Roman lore, seems to hint at such an
explanation 8. The current modern explanation derives the

1 Mogk, iii. 391 ; Tille, Y. and C.
24, find the winter feast in the festival
of Tanfana which the Marsi were
celebrating when Germanicus at-
tacked them in A. D. 14 (Tacitus,
Ann. i. 51). Winter, though immi-
nent, had not yet actually set in,
but this might be the case in any
year after the festival had come to
be determined by a fixed calendar.

8 Tille, Y. and C. 57.

3 Rhys, C. H. 513, says that the
Samhain fell on Nov. 1. The pre-
ceding night was known as Nos
Galan-geaf, the 'night of winter
calends,' and that following as Dy'
gwyl y Meirw, ' the feast of the
Dead.' In F. L. ii. 308 he gives
the date of the Manx Samhain as
Nov. 12, and explains this as being
Nov. 1, O. S. But is it not really
the original date of the feast which
has been shifted elsewhere to the
beginning of the month ?

4 Tille, Y. and C. 12, citing M.
Heyne, Ulfilas, 226: 'In a Gothic
calendarium of the sixth century
November, or Naubaimbair, is called

fruma Iiuleis, which presupposes
that December was called *aftuma
Iiuleis.'

6 Bede, de temp. rat. c. 15. Tille,
Y. and C. 20, points out that the
application of the old tide-name to
fit November and December by the
Goths and December and January
by the Anglo-Saxons is fair evidence
for the belief that the tide itself
corresponded to a period from mid-
November to mid-January.

6 Tille, Y. and C. 147. The terms
gehhol, gedhel, geol, giul, Ml, &c.
signify the Christmas festival season
from the ninth century onwards, and
from the eleventh also Christmas
Day itself. The fifteenth-century
forms are Yule, Ywle, Yole, Ymvle.
In the A.-S. Chronicle the terms
used for Christmas are ' midewinter,'
' Cristes meessa,' ' Cristes tyde,'
' Natiuitedh.' As a single word
' Cristesmesse' appears first in 1131
(Tille, Y. andC. 159). The German
' Weihnacht ' (M. H. G. wich, ' holy ')
appears 1 1000 (Tille, D. W. 22).

7 Pfannenschmidt, 238, 512.

8 The notion is of a circular course
of the sun, passing through the four
turning- or wheeling-points of the
solstices and equinoxes. Cf. ch. vi
for the use of the wheel as a solar
symbol.

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

231

word from a supposed Germanic jehwela, equivalent to the
Latin ioculns l. It would thus mean simply a ' feast ' or
' rejoicing,' and some support seems to be lent to this de-
rivation by the occasional use of the English ' yule ' and the
Keltic gwyl to denote feasts other than that of winter 2.
Other good authorities, however, prefer to trace it to a
Germanic root jeula- from which is derived the Old Norse //,
' a snowstorm'; and this also, so far as its application to the
feast and tide of winter is concerned, seems plausible enough 3.
It is possible that to the winter feast originally belonged the
term applied by Bede to December 24 of Modranicht or
Modraneht^. It would be tempting to interpret this as • the
night which gives birth to the year'; but philologists say
that it can only mean ' night of mothers,' and we must there-
fore explain it as due to some cult of the Matres or triad of
mother-goddesses, which took place at the feast 5.
1Mogk, iii. 391, quoting Kluge, 412, 421, 515, and in F. L. ii. 305,

Englische Studien, ix. 311, and
Bugge, Ark.f. nord. Filolog. iv. 135.
Tille, Y. and C. 8, 148, desirous to
establish an Oriental origin for the
Three Score Day tides, doubts the
equation *jehwela = ioculus, and
suggests a connexion between the
Teutonic terms and the old Cypriote
names tkaios,iov\aios,lov\ir)os,iov\ios
for the period Dec. 22 to Jan. 23 (K.

F. Hermann, Uber griech. Monats-
kunde, 64), and, more hesitatingly,
with the Greek "lovXos or hymn to
Ceres. Weinhold, Deutsche Monats-
namen, 4 ; Deutsche Jahrteilung, 1 5,
thinks that both the Teutonic and
Cypriote names are the Roman
Julius transferred from mid-summer
to mid-winter. Northall, 208, makes
yule = ol, oel, a feast or ' ale,' for
which I suppose there is nothing to
be said. Skeat, Etym. Diet. s. v.,
makes it 'a time of revelry,' and
connects with M.E. youlen, yollen,
to 'yawl' or 'yell,' and with A.-S.
gylan, Dutch joelen, to make merry,

G. jolen, jodeln, to sing out. He
thus gets in a different way much
the sense given in the text.

2 At a Cots wold Whitsun ale a
lord and lady ' of yule ' were chosen
{Gloucester F. L. 56). Rhys, C H.

gives Gwyl as a Welsh term for
' feast ' in general, and in particular
mentions, besides the Gwyl yMeirw
at the Samhain, the Gwyl Aust
(Aug. 1, Lammas or Lugnassad
Day). This also appears in Latin
as the Gula Augusti (Ducange, s.v.
temp. Edw. Ill), and in English as
' the Gule of August' (Hearne, Robert
of Gloucester 's Chron. 679). Tille,
Y. and C. 56, declares that Gula
here is only a mutilation of Vincula,
Aug. 1 being in the ecclesiastical
calendar the feast of St. Peter ad
Vincula.

8 Kluge and Lutz, English Ety-
mology, s. v. Yule.

* Bede, D. T. R. c. 15 ' ipsam
noctem nobis sacrosanctam, tunc
gentili vocabulo Modranicht [v.l.
Modraneht], id est, matrum noctem
appellabant ; ob causam ut suspi-
camur ceremoniarum, quas in ea
pervigiles agebant.'

6 Mogk, iii.391. Tille, YandC.
152, gives some earlier explana-
tions, criticizes that of Mogk, and
offers as his own a reference to a
custom of baking a cake (placenta)
to represent the physical mother-
hood of the Virgin. The practice
doubtless existed and was con-

232 FOLK DRAMA

The subsequent history of the winter feast consists in its
gradual dislocation from the original mid-November position,
and dispersion over a large number of dates covering roughly
the whole period between Michaelmas and Twelfth night.
For this process a variety of causes are responsible. Some
of these are economic. As civilization progressed, mid-
November came to be, less than of old, a signal turning-point
in the year. In certain districts to which the Germano-Keltic
tribes penetrated, in Gaul, for instance, or in Britain with its
insular climate, the winter tarried, and the regular central
European closing of the pastures was no longer a law. Then
again tillage came gradually to equal or outstrip pasturage in
importance, and the year of tillage closed, even in Germany,
at the end of September rather than in mid-November. The
harvest feast began to throw the winter feast rather into the
shade as a wind-up of the year's agricultural labours. This
same development of tillage, together with the more scientific
management of pasturage itself, did more. It provided a
supply of fodder for the cattle, and by making stall-feeding
possible put off further and further into the winter the neces-
sity of the great annual slaughter. The importance in
Germany, side by side with St. Martin's day (November n),
of St. Andrew's day (November 30), and still more St.
Nicholas' day (December 6) 1) as folk-feasts, seems to suggest
a consequent tendency to a gradual shifting of the winter
festival.

These economic causes came gradually into operation
throughout a number of centuries. In displacing the Novem-
ber feast, they prepared the way for and assisted the action
of one still more important. This was the influence of Roman
usage. When the Germano-Keltic tribes first came into

demned by Pope Hormisdas (514- the Virgin, here as elsewhere,

23), by the Lateran Council of taking over the cult of the mother-

649, the Council of Hatfield (680), goddesses.

and the Trullan Council (692). But * Tille, Y. and C. 65. In his

Bede must have known this as earlier book D. W. 7, 29, Dr. Tille

a Christian abuse, and he is quite held the view that there had always

plainly speaking of a pre-Christian been a second winter feast about

custom. J. M. Neale, Essays in three weeks after the first, when

Liturgiology (1867), 5 n, says, ' In the males held over for breeding

most Celtic languages Christmas were slain,
eve is called the night of Mary,'

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER 233

contact with the Roman world, the beginning of the Roman
year was still, nominally at least, upon the Kalends, or first
of March. This did not, so far as I know, leave any traces
upon the practice of the barbarians *. In 45 B.C. the Julian
calendar replaced the Kalends of March by those of January.
During the century and a half that followed, Gaul became
largely and Britain partially Romanized, while there was
a steady infiltration of Roman customs and ideas amongst
the German tribes about and even far beyond the Rhine.
With other elements of the southern civilization came the
Roman calendar which largely replaced the older Germanic
calendar of three-score-day-tides. The old winter festival
fell in the middle of a Roman month, and a tendency set
in to transfer the whole or a part of its customs either
to the beginning of this month 2 or, more usually, to the
beginning of the Roman year, a month and a half later.
This process was doubtless helped by the fact that the
Roman New Year customs were not in their origin, or even
at the period of contact, essentially different from those of
their more northerly cousins. It remained, of course, a
partial and incomplete one. In Gaul, where the Roman
influence was strongest, it probably reached its maximum.
But in Germany the days of St. Martin3 and St. Nicholas4
have fully maintained their position as folk-feasts by the side
of New Year's day, and even Christmas itself; while St.
Martin's day at least has never been quite forgotten in our
islands5. The state of transition is represented by the

1 According to Bede, D. T. R. Christmas only replaced the days
c. 1 5, the Anglo-Saxons hadadopted of St. Martin and St. Nicholas as a
the system of intercalary months German children's festival in the
which belongs to the pre-Julian and sixteenth century.

not the Julian Roman calendar. 6 Tille, K andC. 34,65 ; Pfannen-

But Bede's chapter is full of con- schmidt, 206; Dyer, 418; N.Drake,

fusions : cf. Tille, Y. and C. 145. Shakespeare and his Times (1838),

2 All Saints' day or Hallowmas 93. Martinmas was a favourite
(November 1) and All Souls' day Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval legal
(November 2) have largely, though term. It survived also as a tradi-
not wholly, absorbed the November tional ' tyme of slauchter ' for cattle,
feast of the Dead. ' Martlemas beef was a common

3 Pfannenschmidt, 203; Jahn, term for salt beef. In Scotland a
229; Tille, Y. and C. 21, 28, 36, Mart is a fat cow or bullock, but
42, 57; D. IV. 23. the derivation of this appears to be

4 Tille, D. IV. 29 ; Miiller, 239, from a Celtic word Mart = cow.
248. According to Tille, D. W. 63,

234 FOLK DRAMA

isolated Keltic district known as the Isle of Man. Here,
according to Professor Rhys, the old Samhain or Hollan-
tide day of November 12 is still regarded by many of the
inhabitants as the beginning of the year. Others accept
January 1 ; and there is considerable division of opinion as
to which is the day whereon the traditional New Year
observances should properly be held *.

A final factor in the dislocation of the winter feast was the
introduction of Christianity, and in especial the establishment
of the great ecclesiastical celebration of Christmas. When
Christianity first began to claim the allegiance of the Roman
world, the rulers of the Church were confronted by a series of
southern winter feasts which together made the latter half
of December and the beginning of January into one continuous
carnival. The nature and position of these feasts claim a brief
attention.

To begin with, there were the feasts of the Sun. The
Bruma (brevissima) or Brnmalia was held on November 24,
as the day which ushered in the period of the year during
which the sun's light is diminished. This seems to have been
a beginning of winter feast, adopted by Rome from Thrace 2.
The term bruma was also sometimes applied to the whole
period between November 24 and the solstice, and ultimately
even to the solstitial day itself, fixed somewhat incorrectly by
the Julian calendar on December 25 s. On this day also came
a festival, which probably owed its origin to the Emperor
Aurelian (270-75), whose mother was a semi-Oriental priestess
of the Sun, in one of his Syrian forms as Baal or Belus4,
and who instituted an official cult of this divinity at Rome
with a temple on the Quirinal, a collegium of pontifices, and
ludi circenses held every fourth year5. These fell on the
day of the solstice, which from the lengthening of the sun's

1 Rhys, in F. L. ii. 308. * Cf. p. 112.

2 Mommsen, C. I. L. i2. 287 ; 5 Prefler, ii. 408 ; P. Allard, Ju-
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. s. v. lien FApostat, i. 16 ; J. ReVille, La
Bruma;Toma.schek,'mSiiz&.A&ad. Religion a Rome sous les Sdveres
Wiss. Wien, be (1869), 358. (1885) ; Wissowa, 306. An earlier

3 Ovid, Fasti, i. 163 'bruma novi cult of the same type introduced
prima est veterisque novissima by Elagabalus did not survive its
solis.' founder.

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

235

course was known as the c birthday ' of Sol Novus or Sol
Invictus1. This cult was practised by Diocletian and by
Constantine before his conversion, and was the rallying-point
of Julian in his reaction against Christianity^. Moreover,
the Sol Invictus was identified with the central figure of that
curious half-Oriental, half-philosophical worship of Mithra,
which at one time threatened to become a serious rival to
Christianity as the religion of the thinking portion of the
Roman world 3. That an important Mithraic feast also fell
on December 25 can hardly be doubted, although there is no
direct evidence of the fact 4.

The cult of the Sol Invictus was not a part of the ancient
Roman religion, and, like the Brumalia, the solstitial festival
in his honour, however important to the educated and official
classes of the empire, was not a folk-festival. It lay, however,
exactly between two such festivals. The Saturnalia imme-

1 The earliest reference is prob-
ably that in the calendar of the
Greek astronomer, of uncertain
date, Antiochus, 'HXi'ov ycv£6\iov'
av£fi (pas (Cumont, i. 342, from
Cod. Monac. gr. 287, f. 132). The
Fasti of Furius Dionysius Philo-
calus (a.d. 354) have vin. kal.
ian. N[atalis] invicti C[ircenses]
M[issus] xxx' (C. I. L. i2. 278,
338). Cf. Julian, Orat. 4 (p. 156
ed. Spanheim) evBtvs nera top
TtXevTa'iop tov Kpovov fxrjva iroiovfitv
17X10) tov nepi<papeo-TaTOv aycova, rfjv
toprfjv HXi'w Kara(f>r)p.lo~avT(s Avi-
kt)t<p ; Corippus, de laud. lust,
min. i. 314 ' Solis honore novi
grati spectacula circi'; cf. the
Christian references on p. 242.
Mommsen's Scriptor Syrus quoted
C. I. L. i2. 338 tells us that lights
were used ; ' accenderunt lumina
festivitatis causa.'

2 Preller, ii. 410; Gibbon, ii. 446.
8 On Mithraicism, cf. F. Cumont,

Textes et Monuments relatifs aux
Mysteres de Mithra (1896-9) ; also
the art. by the same writer in
Roscher's Lexicon, ii. 3028, and A.
Gasquet, Le Culte de Mithra (Re-
vue des Deux Mondes for April I,
1899) ; J. ReVille, La Religion d
Rome sous les Se'veres, yy ; Wis-

sowa, 307; Preller, ii. 410; A.
Gardner, Julian the Apostate, 175 ;
P. Allard, Julien FApostat, i. 18 ;
ii. 232 ; G. Zippel, Le Taurobolium,
in Festschrift f. L. Friedlander
(1895), 498. Mithra was originally
a form of the Aryan Sun-god, who
though subordinated in the Maz-
dean system to Ahoura Mazda con-
tinued to be worshipped by the
Persian folk. His cult made its
appearance in Rome about 70 B.C.,
and was developed during the
third and fourth centuries A. D. under
philosophic influences. Mithra was
regarded as the fount of all life, and
the yearly obscuration of the sun's
forces in winter became a hint and
promise of immortality to his wor-
shippers : cf. Carm. adv. paganos,
47 ' qui hibernum docuit sub terra
quaerere solem.' Mithraic votive
stones have been found in all parts
of the empire, Britain included.
They are inscribed "' Soli Invicto,'
' Deo Soli Invicto Mithrae,' ' Nu-
mini Invicto Soli Mithrae,' and the
like.

4 Cumont, Textes et Mon. i. 325 ;
ii. 66, and in Roscher's Lexicon,
ii. 3065 ; Lichtenberger, Encycl. des
Sciences religieuses, s. v. Mithra.

236 FOLK DRAMA

diately preceded it ; a few days later followed the January
Kalends.

The Saturnalia, so far as the religious feast of Saturn was
concerned, took place on December 17. Augustus, however,
added two days to the feriae iudiciariae, during which the
law-courts were shut, and popular usage extended the festival
to seven. Amongst the customs practised was that of the
sigillariorum celebritas, a kind of fair, at which the sigillaria,
little clay dolls or oscilla, were bought and given as presents.
Originally, perhaps, these oscilla were like some of our feasten
cakes, figures of dough. Candles (cerei or candelae) appear
also to have been given. On the second and third days it
was customary to bathe in the early morning x. But the chief
characteristic of the feast was the licence allowed to the lower
classes, to freedmen and to slaves. During the libertas
Decetnbris both moral and social restraints were thrown off2.
Masters made merry with their servants, and consented for
the time to be on a footing of strict equality with them 3.
A rex Saturnalitius, chosen by lot, led the revels, and was
entitled to claim obedience for the most ludicrous commands4.

1 Preller, R. M. ii. 15; Momm- ' unctis falciferi senis diebus,

sen, in C. I. L. i2. 337 ; Marquardt , regnator quibus imperat fritil-

and Mommsen, Handbuch der rb- lus.'

mischen Alterthiimer,v'\. 562 ; Diet. Lucian, Saturnalia,^. 385, intro-

0/ CI. A. s. v. Saturnalia; Tille, duces a dialogue between Saturn

Y. and C, 85; Frazer, iii. 138; and his priests. Saturn says iirra

W. W. Fowler, 268 ; C. Dezobry, fiev f]fiepa>v tj irava fiaaiXeia, kcu fjv

Rome au Siecle d'Auguste (ed. 4, cKirpodecruos tovtw yevafiat, I8id>rqs

1 875)? iii- I40. tvdvs dpi, koi tov ttoWov drjuov els'

a Horace, Satires, ii. 7. 4 : ev avrais Sf rals ewra. anovbaiov

' age, libertate Decembri, y,ev oiibev ov&e ayopaiov SioutTjo-ao-daL

quando ita maiores voluerunt, ftoi o-vy«^tbfjrjTat, iviveiv Be *a\ /tt«-

utere ; narra.' 6veiv koX fioav Kai irai£eiv Kai kv-

8 The democratic character of (Seveiv koX apxovras Kad'urravai koi

the feast is brought out in the vop.01 roiis olKtras eia>xeiv k<A yvy.v6v abeiv

put by Lucian (Luc. Opp. ed. Kai Kporelv vnoTpepovra, ivlore be Kai

Jacobitz, iii. 307 ; Saturnalia, p. 393) is vdmp y\rvxpbv iir\ Ke(pa\fjv &&eitr6cu

in the mouth of the divinely in- ao-/3o\&) Kexpi&pivov to 7rp6o-(onov,

Structed vouoderr)!, Chronosolon, ravra i<pelrai p,oi troielv ; and again :

and in the ' Letters of Saturn ' that tvo>xa>peda Be tjBr) ml Kporafiev ml

follow. in\ rrj eoprij iXevdepidCcop-ev^ eira

4 According to Tacitus, Ann. irerrcxmixev is t6 apxalou eiri Kapvtov

xiii. 15, Nero was king of the koX fjao-ikias xeiP°TOV«>p-c v Kai neiBap-

Saturnalia at the time of the murder x^P-fV awoif ovra> yap &v tt\v irapoi-

of Britannicus. On the nature of ftiav iira\r}0evaaip,i, rj (prjert, iraXLuTrai-

this sovereignty, cf. Arrian, Epi- has roiis yepovras yiyveo-dai. The

ctetus, i. 25 ; Martial, xi. 6 : ducking is curiously suggestive of

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER 237

The similarity of the Saturnalia to the folk-feasts of
western Europe will be at once apparent. The name Saturnus
seems to point to a ploughing and sowing festival, although
how such a festival came to be held in mid-December must
be matter of conjecture 1. The Kalends, on the other hand,
are clearly a New Year festival. They began on January I,
with the solemn induction of the new consuls into office. As
in the case of the Saturnalia, the feriae lasted for more than
one day, covering at least a triduum. The third day was the
day of vota or solemn wishes of prosperity for the New Year
to the emperor. The houses were decked with lights and
greenery, and once more the masters drank and played dice
with their slaves. The resemblance in this respect between
the Kalends and the Saturnalia was recognized by a myth
which told how when Saturn came bringing the gifts of
civilization to Italy he was hospitably received by Janus, who
then reigned in the land2. Another Kalends custom, the
knowledge of which we owe to the denunciations of the
Fathers, was the parading of the city by bands of revellers

western festival customs, but I do vii. 245; Roscher, Lexicon, ii. yj;
not feel sure whether it was the W. W. Fowler, 278 ; Tille, Y. and
image of Saturn that was ducked C. 84; M. Lipenius, Strenarum
or the rex with whom he appears Historia in J. G. Graevius, The-
to half, and only half, identify saurus Antiq. Rom. (1699), xii.
himself. Frazer, iii. 140, lays stress 409. The last-named treatise con-
on the primitive sacrificial character tains a quantity of information set
of the ' rex,' who is said still to out with some obsolete learning,
have been annually slain in Lower The most important contemporary
Moesia at the beginning of the account is that of Libanius (314-
fourth century A. D. ; cf. Acta S. t95) in his sis ras ndKdvdas and his
Dasii, in Acta Bollandiana, xvi. Kahavh&v eMppaais (ed. Reiske, i.
(1897), 5; Parmentier et Cumont, 256; iv. 1053; cf. Sievers, Das
Le Rot des Saturnales, in R. de Leben der Libanius, 170, 204). In
Phitologie, xxi (1897), 143. the former speech he says ravrr^v

1 Frazer, iii. 144, suggests that rfjv (oprrjv evpoi t' av Ttrap.(vr)v e(p'
the Saturnalia may once have been airav, oaov 17 'Papaiav dpxn rtrarai,
in February, and have left a trace in the latter, p.lav 8t oida koivtjv
of themselves in the similar festival airavrmv onoaoi (Sxriv vno ttjv 'Poj-
of the female slaves, the Matro- paia>v apxty. Under the emperors,
nalia, on March 1, which, like the who made much of the strenae and
winter feasts, came in for Chris- vota, the importance of the Kalends
tian censure ; cf. Appendix N. grew, probably at the expense of
No. (i). the Saturnalia; cf. Macrobius, Sa-

2 Preller, R. M. i. 64, 178; ii. turnalia, i. 2. 1 'adsunt feriae quas
13 ; C. Dezobry, Rome au Steele indulget magna pars mensis Iano
d'Auguste (ed. 4, 1875), ii. 169; dicati.'

Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 545 ;

238 FOLK DRAMA

dressed in women's clothes or in the skins of animals. And,
finally, a series of superstitious observances testified to the
belief that the events of the first day of the year were
ominous for those of the year itself. A table loaded all
night long with viands was to ensure abundance of food ;
such necessaries of life as iron and fire must not be given
or lent out of the house, lest the future supply of them should
fail. To this order of ideas belonged, ultimately at least, if
not originally, the central feature of the whole feast, the
strenae or presents so freely exchanged between all classes
of society on the Kalends. Once, so tradition had it, the
strenae were nothing more than twigs plucked from the grove
of the goddess Strenia, associated with Janus in the feast 1 ;
but in imperial times men gave honeyed things, that the year
of the recipient might be full of sweetness, lamps that it might
be full of light, copper and silver and gold that wealth might
flow in amain 2.

Naturally, the Fathers were not slow to protest against these
feasts, and, in particular, against the participation in them of
professing Christians. Tertullian is, as usual, explicit and
emphatic in his condemnation3. The position was aggravated
when, probably in the fourth century, the Christian feast of
the Birthday of Christ came to be fixed upon December 25,
in the very heart of the pagan rejoicings and upon the actual
day hitherto sacred to Sol Invictus. The origin of Christmas
is wrapped in some obscurity4. The earliest notices of a

1 Preller, i. 180; Mommsen and that the sweet cakes and the lamps
Marquardt, vi. 14; vii. 245 ; W.W. like the verhenae had originally a
Fowler, 278; Tille, Y. and C. 84, closer connexion with the rites of
104. Strenia was interpreted in the the feast than that of mere omens,
sense of ' strenuous ' ; cf. Sym- The emperors expected liberal
machus, Epist. x. 15 'ab exortu strenae, and from them the cus-
paene urbis Martiae strenarum usus torn passed into mediaeval and
adolevit auctore Tatio rege, qui Renaissance courts. Queen Eliza-
verbenas felicis arboris ex luco beth received sumptuous new year
Streniae anni novi auspices primus gifts from her subjects. For a
accepit. . . . Nomen indicio est money payment the later empire
viris^ strenuis haec convenire vir- used the term KaXavftiKov or kalen-
tute.' Preller calls Strenia a Sabine daticum. Strenae survives in the
Segensgottin. French e'trennes (M tiller, 150, 504).

* Mommsen and Marquardt, vii. 3 Appendix N, Nos. (i), (ii).

245 ; Lipenius, 489. The gifts * The most recent authorities are

were often inscribed 'anno novo Tille, Y. and C. 119; H. Usener,

faustum felix tibi.' It is probable Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuch-

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

239

celebration of the birth of Christ in the eastern Church attach
it to that of his baptism on the Epiphany. This feast is as
old as the second century. By the fourth it was widespread
in the East, and was known also in Gaul and probably in
northern Italy 1. At Rome it cannot be traced so early ;
but it was generally adopted there by the beginning of the
fifth, and Augustine blames the Donatists for rejecting it,
and so cutting themselves off from fellowship with the East 2.
Christmas, on the other hand, made its appearance first at
Rome, and the East only gradually and somewhat grudgingly
accepted it. The Paulician Christians of Armenia to this day
continue to feast the birth and the baptism together on
January 6, and to regard the normal Christian practice as
heretical. An exact date for the establishment of the Roman
feast cannot be given, for the theory which ascribed it to
Pope Liberius in 353 has been shown to be baseless 3. But
it appears from a document of 336 that the beginning of the
liturgical year then already fell between December 8 and

ungen, i, Das Weihnachtsfest
(1889) ; L. Duchesne, Origines du
Culte chritien (ed. 2, 1898), 247,
and in Bulletin critique (1890),
41 ; F. C. Conybeare, The History
of Christmas, in American Journal
of Theology (1899), iii. 1, and Intro-
duction to The Key of Truth
(1898); F. Cumont, Textes et
Monuments mithraiques, i (1899),
342> 355- I have not been able to
see an article praised by Mr. Cony-
beare, in P. de Lagarde, Mitthei-
lungen (1890), iv. 241.

1 Conybeare, Am. J. Th. iii. 7,
cites, without giving exact refer-
ences, two 'north Italian homilies'
of the fourth century, which seem
to show this.

2 Sermo ccn(P,L. xxxviii. 1033).

3 The depositio martyrum, at-
tached to the Fasti of Philocalus
drawn up in 354, opens with the
entry 'viii kl. ianu. natus Christus
in Bethleem Iudeae.' December 25
was therefore kept as the birthday
at least as early as 353. Usener, i.
267, argued that the change must
have taken place in this very year,
because Liberius, while veiling Mar-

cellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, on
the Epiphany, spoke of the day as
' natalem Sponsi tui ' (de Virgini-
bus, iii. 1, in P. L. xvi. 219). But it
is not proved either that this event
took place in 363, or that it was on
Epiphany rather than Christmas
day. Liberius refers to the Marriage
at Cana and the Feeding of the Five
Thousand. But the first allusion is
directly led up to by the sponsalia
of Marcellina, and both events,
although at a later date commemo-
rated at Epiphany, may have be-
longed to Christmas at Rome, before
Epiphany made its appearance (Du-
chesne, Bulletin critique (1890),
41). Usener adds that Liberius
built the Basilica Liberii, also
known as Sta. Maria ad Praesepe
or Sta. Maria Maggiore, which is
still a great station for the Christmas
ceremonies, in honour of the new
feast. But Duchesne shows that
the dedication to St. Mary only
dates from a rebuilding in the fifth
century, that the praesepe cannot
be traced there before the seventh,
and that the original Christmas
statio was at St. Peter's.

240 FOLK DRAMA

ay1. Christmas may, therefore, be assumed to have been in
existence at least by 336.

It would seem, then, that the fourth century witnessed ,the
establishment, both at Rome and elsewhere, of Christmas and
Epiphany as two distinct feasts, whereas only one, although
probably not everywhere the same one, had been known
before. This fact is hardly to be explained by a mere
attempt to accommodate varying local uses. The tradition
of the Armenian doctors, who stood out against Christmas,
asserts that their opponents removed the birthday of Christ
from January 6 out of 'disobedience2.' This points to a
doctrinal reason for the separate celebration of the birth and
the baptism. And such a reason may perhaps be found in
the Adoptionist controversies. The joint feast appeared to
lend credence to the view, considered a heresy, but still
adhered to by the Armenian Church, that Christ was God,
not from his mother's womb, but only from his adoption or
spiritual birth at the baptism in Jordan. It was needful that
orthodox Christians should celebrate him as divine from the
very moment of his carnal birth 3.

The choice of December 25 as the day for the Roman feast
cannot be supposed to rest upon any authentic tradition as
to the historic date of the Nativity. It is one of several early

1 Duchesne, Bulletin critique Sun. However,whentheSonofGod
(1890), 44. This document also was born of the Virgin, they cele-
belongs to the collection of Philo- brated the same feast, although
calus. they had turned from their idols to

2 Conybeare, Key of Truth, clii- God. And when their bishops {or
clvii, quoting an Armenian bishop primates) saw this, they proceeded
Hippolytus vbBodl. Armen. Marsh to take the Feast of the Birth of
467, f. 338 a, ' as many as were dis- Christ, which was on the sixth of
obedient have divided the two January, and placed it there (viz.
feasts.' According to the Catechism on Dec. 25). And they abrogated
of the Syrian Doctors in the same the feast of the Sun, because it (the
MS., Sahak asked Afrem why the Sun) was nothing, as we said before.'
churches feast Dec. 25: the teacher Mommsen, C. I. L. i2. 338, quotes
replied, ' The Roman world does to the same effect another Scriptor
so from idolatry, because of the Syrus (in Assemanus, Bibl. Orient.
worship of the Sun. And on the ii. 164) : cf. p. 235. The early apo-
25th of Dec, which is the first of logists (Tertullian, Apol. 16; ad
Qanun ; when the day made a Nationes, i. 13; Origen, contra
beginning out of the darkness they Celsum, viii. 67) defend Chris-
feasted the Sun with great joy, and tianity against pagan charges of
declared that day to be the nuptials Sun-worship.

[? ' natals,' but cf. p. 241, n. 1] of the 3 Conybeare,/. Am. Th. iii. 8.

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

241

patristic guesses on the subject. It is not at all improbable
that it was determined by an attempt to adopt some of the
principal Christian festivals to the solstices and equinoxes of
the Roman calendar1. The enemies of Roman orthodoxy
were not slow to assert that it merely continued under
another name the pagan celebration of the birthday of Sol
Invictus2. Nor was the suggestion entirely an empty one.

1 Most of these dates were in the
spring (Duchesne, 247). As late
as 1 243 the Pseudo-Cyprianic de
Pascha computus gives March 28.
On the other hand, December 25
is given early in the third century
by Hippoh/tus, Comtn. super
Danielem, iv. 23 (p. 243, ed. Bon-
wetsch, 1897), although the text
has been suspected of interpolation
(Hilgenfeld, va.Berlin.phil. Wochen-
schrift, 1897, p. 1324, s.). Ananias
of Shirak (+ 600-50), Horn, de
Nat. (transl. in Expositor, Nov.
1890), says that the followers of
Cerinthus first separated the birth
and baptism : cf. Conybeare, Key of
Truth, cliv. Thisisfurtherexplained
by Paul of Taron (ob. 1123), adv.
Theopistum, 222 (quoted Cony-
beare, clvi), who says that Artemon
calculated the dates of the Annun-
ciation as March 25 and the Birth
as December 25, 'the birth, not
however of the Divine Being, but
only of the mere man.' Both Cerin-
thus (end of 1st cent.) and Artemon
(t 202-17) appear to have held
Adoptionist tenets : cf. Schaff, iv.
465, 574. Paul adds that Artemon
calculated the dates from those for
the conception and nativity of John
the Baptist. This implies that St.
John Baptist's day was already June
24 by 1 200. It was traditional on
that day by St. Augustine's time,
1 Hoc maiorum traditione suscepi-
mus' (Sermo ccxcii. 1, in Migne,
P. Z.xxxviii. 1320). The six months'
interval between the two nativities
may be inferred from St. Luke i.
26. St. Augustine refers to the
symbolism of their relation to each
other, and quotes with regard to
their position on the solstices the
words ascribed to the Baptist in

St. John iii. 30 ' ilium oportet cre-
scere, me autem minui ' ( Sermo cxciv.
2; cclxxxvii. 3; cclxxxviii. 5; Migne,
P. L. xxxviii. 1016, 1302, 1306).
Duchesne, 250, conjectures that the
varying dates of West (Dec. 25)
and East (Jan. 6) depended on a
similar variation in the date as-
signed to the Passion, it being
assumed in each case that the life
of Christ must have been a com-
plete circle, and that therefore he
must have died on the anniversary
of his conception in the womb.
Thus St. Augustine (in Heptat. ii.
90) upbraids the Jews, ' non coques
agnum in lacte matris suae.' March
25 was widely accepted for the
Passion from Tertullian onwards,
and certain Montanists held to the
date of April 6. Astronomy makes
it impossible that March 25 can be
historically correct, and therefore
the whole calculation, if Duchesne
is right, probably started from an
arbitrary identification of a Chris-
tian date with the spring equinox,
just as, if Ananias of Shirak is
right, it started from a similar
identification of another such date
with the summer solstice. But it
seems just as likely that the birth
was fixed first, and the Annuncia-
tion and St. John Baptist's day
calculated back from that. If the
Passion had been the starting-point,
would not the feast of Christmas,
as distinct from the traditional date
for the event, have become a mov-
able one ?

2 The Armenian criticism just
quoted only re-echoes that put by
St. Augustine in the mouth of the
Manichaeans in Contra Faustum,
xx. 4 (Corp. Script. Eccl. xxvj
' Faustus dixit . . . solemnes gentium

CHAMBERS.

242

FOLK DRAMA

The worshippers of Sol Invictus, and in particular the
Mithraic sect, were not quite on the level of the ordinary-
pagans by tradition. Mithraism had claims to be a serious
and reasonable rival to Christianity, and if its adherents
could be induced by argument to merge their worship of
the physical sun in that of the ' Sun of Righteousness,' they
were well worth winning1. On the other hand there were
obvious dangers in the Roman policy which were not wholly
averted, and we find Leo the Great condemning certain
superstitious customs amongst his flock which it is difficult
to distinguish from the sun-worship practised alike by pagans
and by Saint Augustine's heretical opponents, the Mani-
chaeans 2.

dies cum ipsis celebratis ut Kalen-
das et solstitia.' Augustine answers
other criticisms of the same order
in the course of the book, but he
does not take up this one.

1 Augustine, in his sermons, uses
a solar symbolism in two ways,
besides drawing the parallel with
St. John already quoted. Christ is
lux e tenebris : ' quoniam ipsa infi-
delitas quae totum mundum vice
noctis obtexerat, minuenda fuerat
fide crescente ; ideo die Natalis
Domini nostri Iesu Christi, et nox
incipit perpeti detrimenta, et dies
sumere augmenta' (Sermo cxc. I
in P. L. xxxviii. 1007). He is also
sponsus procedens de thalamo suo
(Sermo cxcii. 3 ; cxcv. 3, in P. L.
xxxviii. 1013, 1018). Following this
Caesarius or anothercalls Christmas
the dies nuptialis Christi, on which
' sponsae suae Ecclesiae adiunctus
est ' (Serm. Pseudo-Aug. cxvi. 2, in
P. L. xxxix. 1975). Cumont, i. 355,
gives other examples of Le Soleil
Symbole du Christ from an early
date, and especially of the use of
the phrase Sol Iustitiae from
Malachi, iv. 2.

2 Pseudo-Chrysostom (Italian,
4th cent.), de solstitiis et aeqai-
noctiis {Op. Chrys. ed. 1588, ii.
118) 'Sed et dominus nascitur
mense Decembri, hiemis tempore,
viii kal. Ianuarias . . . Sed et in-
victi natalem appellant. Quis uti-

que tarn invictus nisi dominus noster
qui Mortem subactam devicit ? vel
quod dicant Solis esse natalem,
ipse est Sol iustitiae de quo Mala-
chias propheta dixit ' ; St. Augu-
stine. Sermo cxc. 1 (P. L. xxxviii.
1007) ' habeamus, igitur, fratres,
solemnem istum diem ; non sicut
infideles propter hunc solem, sed
propter eum qui fecit hunc solem ' ;
Tract, in Iohann. xxxiv. 2 (P. L.
xxxv. 1652) 'numquid forte Domi-
nus Christus est Sol iste qui ortu
et occasu peragit diem? Non
enim defuerunt heretici qui ita sen-
serunt . . . (c. 4) ne quis carnaliter
sapiens solem istum intelligendum
putaret ' ; Pseudo-Ambrose (per-
haps Maximus of Turin, t4i2-
65), Sermo vi. (P. L. xvii. 614)
' bene quodammodo sanctum hunc
diem natalis Domini solem novum
vulgus appellat . . . quod libenter
nobis amplectendum est ; quia
oriente Salvatore non solum hu-
mani generis salus, sed etiam solis
ipsius claritas innovatur ' ; Leo
Magnus, Sermo xxii, in Nativ.
Dom. (P. L. liv. 198) 'Ne idem
ille tentator, cuius iam a vobis
dominationem Christus exclusit, ali-
quibus vos iterum seducat insidiis,
et haec ipsa praesentis diei gaudia
suae fallaciae arte corrumpat, illu-
dens simplicioribus animis de quo-
rumdam persuasione pestifera, qui-
bus haec dies solemnitatis nostrae

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

243

From Rome the Christmas feast gradually made its way
over East and West. It does not seem to have reached
Jerusalem until at least the sixth century, and, as we have
seen, the outlying Church of Armenia never adopted it. But
it was established. at Antioch about 375 and at Alexandria
about 430 x. At Constantinople an edict of 400 included it
in the list of holy days upon which ludi must not be held 2.
In 506 the council of Agatha recognized the Nativity as one
of the great days of the Christian year 3, while fasting on
that day was forbidden by the council of Braga in 561 as
savouring of Priscillianist heresy 4. The feast of the Epiphany,
meanwhile, was relegated to a secondary place ; but it was
not forgotten, and served as a celebration, in addition to the
baptism, of a number of events in the life of Christ, which
included the marriage at Cana and the feeding of the five

non tam de nativitate Christi quam
de novi, ut dicunt, solis ortu honora-
bilis videatur ' ; Sermo xxvii, in
Nat. Dom. {P. L. liv. 218) ' De
talibus institutis etiam ilia generatur
impietas ut sol in inchoatione diurnae
lucis exsurgens a quibusdam in-
sipientioribus de locis eminenti-
oribus adoretur ; quod nonnulli
etiam Christiani adeo se religiose
facere putant, ut priusquam ad B.
Petri apostoli basilicam, quae uni
Deo vivo et vero est dedicata, per-
veniant, superatis gradibus quibus
ad suggestum areae superioris
ascenditur, converso corpore ad
nascentem se solem reflectant, et
curvatis cervicibus, in honorem se
splendidi orbis inclinent. Quod fieri
partim ignorantiae vitio, partim
paganitatis spiritu, multum tabe-
scimus et dolemus.' Eusebius,
Sermo xxii. 7repi do-rpovoficov (P. G.
lxxxvi. 453), also refers to the adora-
tion of the sun by professing Chris-
tians. The ' tentator ' of Leo and
the ' heretici ' of Augustine are prob-
ably Manichaeus and his followers,
against whose sun-worship Augu-
stine argues at length in Contra
Faustum, xx {Corp. Script. Eccl.
xxv).

1 Duchesne, 248.

2 Cf. p. 14.

3 C. Agathense,c.2l (Mansi,viii.
328) ' Pascha vero, natale domini,
epiphania, ascensionem domini,
pentecostem, et natalem S. Ioannis
Baptistae, vel si qui maximi dies in
festivitatibus habentur, non nisi in
civitatibus aut in parochiis teneant.'

4 Cone. Bracarense (t56o), Prop.
4 (Mansi, ix. 775) ' Si quis natalem
Christi secundum carnem non bene
honorat, sed honorare se simulat,
ieiunans in eodem die, et in domi-
nico ; quia Christum in vera hominis
natura natum esse non credit, sicut
Cerdon, Marcion, Manichaeus, et
Priscillianus, anathema sit.' A
similar prohibition is given by
Gregory II (t725), Capitulare, c.
10 (P. L. lxxxix. 534). To failings
in the opposite direction the Church
was more tender : cf. Penitentiale
Theodori (Haddan and Stubbs, iii.
177), de Crapida et Ebrietate 'Si
vero pro infirmitate aut quia longo
tempore se abstinuerit, et in con-
suetudine non erit ei multum bibere
vel manducare, aut pro gaudio in
Natale Domini aut in Pascha aut
proalicuius Sanctorum commemora-
tione faciebat, et tunc plus non ac-
cipit quam decretum est a seniori-
bus, nihil nocet. Si episcopus
iuberit, non nocet illi, nisi ipse
similiter faciat.'

R %

244 FOLK DRAMA

thousand, and of which the visit of the Magi gradually
became the leading feature. The Dodecahemerony or period
of twelve days, linking together Christmas and Epiphany,
was already known to Ephraim Syrus as a festal tide at the
end of the fourth century 1, and was declared to be such by
the council of Tours in 567 2.

To these islands Christmas came, if not with the Keltic
Church, at least with St. Augustine in 592. On Christmas
day, 598, more than ten thousand English converts were
baptized 3, and by the time of Bede (f 734) Christmas was
established, with Epiphany and Easter, as one of the three
leading festivals of the year 4. The Laws of Ethelred (991-
10 1 6) and of Edward the Confessor ordain it a holy tide of
peace and concord 5. Continental Germany received it from
the synod of Mainz in 813 6, while Norway owed it to King
Hakon the Good in the middle of the tenth century 7.

Side by side with the establishment of Christmas pro-
ceeded the ecclesiastical denunciation of those pagan festivals
whose place it was to take. Little is heard in Christian
times of the Saturnalia, which do not seem to have shared
the popularity of the Kalends outside the limits of Rome
itself. But these latter, and especially the Kalends, are the
subject of attack in every corner of the empire. Jerome of
Rome, Ambrose of Milan, Maximus of Turin, Chrysologus
of Ravenna, assail them in Italy ; Augustine in Africa ;
Chrysostom and Asterius and the Trullan council in the
East. In Spain, Bishop Pacian of Barcelona made a treatise
upon one of the most objectionable features of the festival
which, as he says with some humour, probably tended to
increase its vogue. In Gaul, Caesarius of Aries initiated
a vigorous campaign. To cite all the ecclesiastical pro-

1 Tille, Y. and C. 122. gum tidan ealswahit riht is, eallum

2 Cf. Appendix N, No. xxii. cristenum mannum sib and som
8 Efiist. Gregorii ad Eulogium gemaene, and aelc sacu getwae-

(Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 12). med.' Cf. Leges Edwardi (Thorpe,

4 Epist. Bedae ad Egbertum i. 443).

(Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 323). 6 C. Moguntiacum, c. 36 (Mansi,

0 Leges Ethelredi (Thorpe, xiv. 73) ' In natali Domini dies

Ancient Laws, i. 309) ' Ordal and quatuor, octavas Domini, epi-

adhar sindon tocweden . . . fram phaniam Domini.'

Adventum Domini odh octavas 7 Tille, Y. and C. 203.
Epiphanie. . . . And beo tham hal-

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER 245

nouncements on the subject would be tedious. Homily
followed homily, canon followed canon, capitulary followed
capitulary, penitential followed penitential, for half a thousand
years. But the Kalends died hard. When Boniface was
tackling them amongst the Franks in the middle of the
eighth century, he was sorely hampered by the bad example
of their continued prevalence at the very gates of the Vatican;
and when Burchardus was making his collection of heathen
observances in the eleventh century, those of the Kalends
were still to be included. In England there is not much heard
of them, but a reference in the so-called Penitential of Egbert
about 766 proves that they were not unknown. It need hardly
be said that all formal religious celebration of the Kalends
disappeared with the official victory of Christianity. But this
element had never been of great importance in the feast ; and
the terms in which the ecclesiastical references from beginning
to end are couched prove that they relate mainly to popular
New Year customs common to the Germanic and the more
completely Latinized populations I.

It appears from a decree of the council of Tours in 567 that,
ad calcandam Gentilium consuetudinem, the fourth-century
Fathers established on the first three days of January a
triduum ieiunii, with litanies, in spite of the fact that these
days fell in the very midst of the festal period of the
Dodecahemeron2. At the same time January 1 was kept
as the octave of Christmas, and the early Roman ritual-
books show two masses for that day, one in octavis Domini,
the other ad prohibendum ab idolis. The Jewish custom by
which circumcision took place eight days after birth made it
almost inevitable that there should be some celebration of the
circumcision of Christ upon the octave of his Nativity. This
was the case from the sixth century, and ultimately, about
the eighth, the attempt to keep up a fast on January 1 was
surrendered, and the festival of the Circumcision took its
place 3.

Some tendency was shown by the Church not merely to

1 Cf. the collection of prohibi- N, No. xxii).

tions in Appendix N. 3 R. Sinker, in D. C. A. s. v.

2 C. of Tours, c. 18 (Appendix Circumcision.

246 FOLK DRAMA

set up Christmas as a rival to the pagan winter feasts, but
also to substitute it for the Kalends of January as the
beginning of the year. But the innovation never affected
the civil year, and was not maintained even by ecclesiastical
writers with any consistency, for even they prefer in many
cases a year dating from the Annunciation, or more rarely
from Easter. The so-called Annunciation style found favour
even for many civil purposes in Great Britain, and was not
finally abandoned until 1753 *■ But although Christmas
cannot be said to have ever become a popular New Year's
day, yet its festal importance and its propinquity to
January 1 naturally led to a result undesired and possibly
undreamt of by its founders, namely, the further transference
to it of many of the long-suffering Germano-Keltic folk-
customs, which had already travelled under Roman influence
from the middle of November to the beginning of January2.
Already in the sixth century it had become necessary to
forbid the abuses which had gathered around the celebration
of Christmas eve 3 ; and the Christmas customs of to-day,
even where their name does not testify to their original
connexion with the Kalends 4, are in a large number of

1 On this difficult subject see chalendan, chalendal, calignaon,
Tille, Y. and C. 134; H. Grotefend, or atlenos, and the peasants sang
Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung round it ' Calene vient ' (Tille, D.
(\%<fi),\\;¥.'Rw\<\,Chronologiedes W.2S6; Miiller, 475,478). Thiers,
Mittelalters und der Neuzeii (1897), i. 264, speaks of ' le pain de Ca-
23 ; C. Plummer, Anglo-Saxon lende.' Christmas songs used to
Chronicle, ii. cxxix ; R. L. Poole, be known in Silesia as Kolende-
in Eng. Hist. Review (1 901), 719. lieder (Tille, D. W. 287). The

2 The position of Christmas would Lithuanian term for Christmas is
have made it natural that it should Kalledos and the Czechic Koleda
attract observances from the spring (Polish Kolenda, Russian Koljada).
festivals also, and, in fact, it did at- A verb colendisare appears as a
tract the Mummers' play: cf. p. 226. Bohemian law term (Tille, Y. and
It cannot of course be positively C. 84) ; while in the fourteenth
said whether the Epiphany fires and century the Christmas quete at
some of the other agricultural rites Prague was known as the Ko-
to be presently mentioned (ch. xii) ledasammeln (Tille, D. W. 112).
came from the November or the The Bohemian Christmas proces-
ploughing festival. sion described by Alsso (cf. ch. xii)

8 C. of ' Auxerre (573-603), c. II was called Calendizatio, and ac-

(Appendix N. No. xxv). cording to tradition St Adalbert

* In the south of France Christmas (tenth century) transferred it from

is Chalendes, in Provence Calendas the Kalends to Christmas, and

or Calenos. The log is calignau, called it colendizatio ' a colendo'

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER 247

cases, so far of course as they are not simply ecclesiastical,
merely doublets of those of the New Year.

What is true of Christmas is true also of Epiphany or
Twelfth night ; and the history of the other modern festivals
of the winter cycle is closely parallel. The old Germanic
New Year's day on November n became the day of St.
Martin, a fourth-century bishop of Tours, and the pervigiliae
of St. Martin, like those of the Nativity itself, already caused
a scandal in the sixth century1. The observances of the
deferred days of slaughter clustered round the feasts of
St. Andrew on November 30, and more especially St. Nicholas
on December 6. The Todtenfest, which had strayed to the
beginning of November, was continued in the feasts of All
Saints or Hallowmas, the French Toussaint, on November 1,
and its charitable supplement of All Souls, on November 2.
That which had strayed still further to the time of harvest
became the Gemeinwoche or week-wake, and ultimately St.
Michael and All Angels. Nor is this all. Very similar
customs attached themselves to the minor feasts of the
Dodecahemeron, St. Stephen's, St. John the Evangelist's,
Innocents' days, to the numerous dedication wakes that fell
on days, such as St. Luke's2, in autumn or early winter, or
to the miscellaneous feasts closely approaching the Christmas
season, St. Clement's, St. Catherine's, St. Thomas's, with which
indeed in many localities that season is popularly supposed
to begin3. Nor was this process sensibly affected by the
establishment in the sixth century of the ieiunium known
as Advent, which stretched for a Quadragesima, or period

1 C. of Auxerre (573-603), c. 5 and the gilt on the gingerbread

(Appendix N, No. xxv). Pfan- took the same shape. It will be

nenschmidt, 498, has collected a remembered that the symbol of St.

number of notices of Martinalia Luke in Christian art is a horned

from the tenth century onwards. ox.

a Pfannenschmidt, 279; Dyer, s Cf. p. 114. According to Spence,

386, describe the • Horn Fair ' at 196, the Shetland Christmas begins

Charlton, Kent, on St. Luke's Day, on St. Thomas's Day and ends on

Oct. 18. A king and queen were Jan. 18, known as 'Four and

chosen, who went in procession to Twenty Day.' Candlemas (Feb. 2)

the church, wearing horns. The is also often regarded as the end

visitors wore masks or women's of the Christmas season. The

clothes, and played practical jokes Anglo-Saxon Christmas feast lasted

with water. Rams' horns were sold to the Octave of Epiphany (Tille,

at the fair, which lasted three days, Y and C. 165).

248 FOLK DRAMA

of forty days, from Martinmas onwards. And finally, just as
in May village dipping customs attached themselves in the
seventeenth century to Royal Oak day, so in the same
century we find the winter festival fires turned to new
account in the celebration of the escape of King and Parlia-
ment from the nefarious machinations of Guy Fawkes.

CHAPTER XII
NEW YEAR CUSTOMS

[Bibliographical Note. — The two works of Dr. Tille remain of im-
portance. The compilations specially devoted to the usages of the
Christmas season are chiefly of a popular character ; W. Sandys,
Christmas Tide (n.d.), J. Ashton, A Righte Merrie Christmasse! 7 /(n. d.),
and, for French data, E. Miiller, Le Jour de rAn (n. d.), may be men-
tioned ; H. Usener, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, vol. ii (1889),
prints various documents, including the Largum Seroota. Bohemian priest
named Alsso, on early fifteenth-century Christmas eve customs. Most of
the books named in the bibliographical note to chap, v also cover the
subject. A Bibliography of Christmas runs through Notes and Queries}
6th series, vi. 506, viii. 491, x. 492, xii. 489; 7th series, ii. 502, Hi. 152,
iv. 502, vi. 483, x. 502, xii. 483 ; 8th series, ii. 505, iv. 502, vi. 483, viii.
483, x. 512, xii. 502 ; 9th series, ii. 505, iv. 515, vi. 485.]

It is the outcome of the last chapter that all the folk-
customs of the winter half of the year, from Michaelmas to
Plough Monday, must be regarded as the flotsam and jetsam
of a single original feast. This was a New Year's feast, held
by the Germano-Keltic tribes at the beginning of the central
European winter when the first snows fell about the middle
of November, and subsequently dislocated and dispersed by
the successive clash of Germano-Keltic civilization with the
rival schemes of Rome and of Christianity. A brief summary
of the customs in question will show clearly their common
character. For purposes of classification they may be divided
into several groups. There are such customs belonging to
the agricultural side of the old winter feast as have not been
transferred with the growing importance of tillage to the
feast of harvest. There are the customs of its domestic side,
as a feast of the family hearth and of the dead ancestors.
There are the distinctively New Year customs of omen and
prognostication for the approaching twelve months. There
are the customs of play, common more or less to all the
village festivals. And, finally, there are a small number of
customs, or perhaps it would be truer to say legends, which

250 FOLK DRAMA

appear to owe their origin not merely to heathenism trans-
formed by Christianity, but to Christianity itself. Each of
these groups may well claim a more thoroughgoing con-
sideration than can here be given to any one of them.

The agricultural customs are just those of the summer
feasts over again. Once more the fertilization spirit is
abroad in the land. The embodiment of it in vegetation
takes several forms. Obviously the last foliage and bur-
geoning flowers of spring and summer are no longer avail-
able. But there is, to begin with, the sheaf of corn or
'harvest -May' in which the spirit appeared at harvest, and"1
which is called upon once more to play its part in the winter
rites. This, however, is not a very marked part. A York-
shire custom of hanging a sheaf on the church door at
Christmas is of dubious origin 1. But Swedish and Danish
peasants use the grain of the ' last sheaf to bake the
Christmas cake, and both in Scandinavia and Germany the
' Yule straw ' serves various superstitious purposes. It is
scattered on barren fields to make them productive. It is
strewed, instead of rushes, upon the house floor and the
church floor. It is laid in the mangers of the cattle. Fruit-
trees are tied together with straw ropes, that they may bear
well and are said to be ' married V

More naturally the fertilization spirit' may be discerned at
the approach of winter in such exceptional forms of vegeta-
tion as endure the season. In November the apples and the
nuts still hang upon their boughs, and these are traditional
features in the winter celebrations. Then there are the
evergreens. Libanius, Tertullian, and Chrysostom tell how
on the Kalends the doors of houses throughout the Roman
empire were crowned with bay. Martin of Braga forbade
the ' pagan observance ' in a degree which found its way into
the canon law. The original strena which men gave one
another on the same day for luck was nothing but a twig
plucked from a sacred grove ; and still in the fifth century men

1 Dyer, 451 ; Ashton, 118, where birds.'

the custom is said to have been a Frazer, i. 177, ii. I72> 286 ;

'started by the Rev. J. Kenworthy, Grimm, iv. 1783; Tille, D. W. 50,

Rector of Ackworth, in Yorkshire, 178 ; Alsso, in Usener, ii. 61, 65.
... for the special benefit of the

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS 251

returned from their new year auguries laden with ramusculi
that they might thereafter be laden with wealth l. It is not
necessary to dwell upon the surviving use of evergreens in
the decoration at Christmas of houses and churches2. The
sacredness of these is reflected in the taboo which enjoins
that they shall not be cast out upon the dust-heap, but shall,
when some appropriate day, such as Candlemas, arrives, be
solemnly committed to the flames 3. Obviously amongst
other evergreens the holly and the ivy, with their clustering
pseudo-blossoms of coral and of jet, are the more adequate
representatives of the fertilization spirit4; most of all the
mistletoe, perched an alien visitant, faintly green and white,
amongst the bared branches of apple or of oak. The mistle-
toe has its especial place in Scandinavian myth 5 : Pliny
records the ritual use of it by the Druids 6 ; it is essential to
the winter revels in their amorous aspect ; and its vanished
dignities still serve, here to bar it from, there to make it impera-
tive in, the edifices of Christian worship 7. A more artificial
embodiment of the fertilization spirit is the ' Christmas tree'

1 Lipenius, 423 ; cf. Appendix N, one of them drop her materials on
Nos. i, vi, xiii, xxiv. the ground, she was torn to pieces

2 Tille, Y. and C. 103, 174; Phil- by her companions (Rhys, C. H.
pot, 164; Jackson and Burne, 397; 196). They are replaced on Candle-
Dyer, 457 ; Stow, Survey of London mas by snowdrops, or, according to
(ed. 1618), 149 'Against the feast Herrick, 'the greener box.' In
of Christmas, euery mans house, Shropshire a garland made of
as also their parish Churches, were blackthorn is left hanging from
decked with Holm, Iuy, Bayes, and New Year to New Year, and then
whatsoever the season of the yeere burnt in a festival fire (F. L. x. 489 ;
aforded to be greene. The Con- xii. 349).

duits and Standards in the streetes 4 The Christmas, rivalry between

were, likewise, garnished.' He holly and ivy is the subject of

gives an example from 1444. carols, some dating from the fif-

3 Burne-Jackson, 245, 397, 411; teenth century; cf. Ashton, 92;
Ashton, 95. Customs vary: here Burne-Jackson, 245.

the evergreens must be burnt ; there 5 Grimm, iii. 1205.

given to the cattle. They should 6 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxi. 95.

not touch the ground (Grimm, iii. "' Ashton, 81, 92; Ditchfield, 18;

1207). With this taboo compare Brand, i. 285 ; Dyer, 458; Philpot,

that described by ancient writers, 164. Mistletoe is the chief ingre-

probably on the authority of Posi- dient of the ' kissing-bunch,' some-

donius, as existing in a cult of times a very elaborate affair, with

a god identified with Dionysus apples and dolls hung in it. The

amongst the Namnites on the west ecclesiastical taboo is not universal ;

coast of Gaul. A temple on an in York Minster, e.g., mistletoe was

island was unroofed and reroofed laid on the altar.
by the priestesses annually. Did

252 FOLK DRAMA

par excellence, adorned with lights and apples, and often with
a doll or image upon the topmost sprig. The first recorded
Christmas tree is at Strassburg in 1604. The custom is
familiar enough in modern England, but there can be little
doubt that here it is of recent introduction, and came in, in
fact, with the Hanoverians x.

Finally, there can be little wonder that the popular
imagination found a special manifestation of the fertiliza-
tion spirit in the unusual blossoming of particular trees or
species of trees in the depths of winter. In mild seasons
a crab or cherry might well adorn the old winter feast
in November. A favourable climate permits such a thing
even at mid-winter. Legend, at any rate, has no doubt of
the matter, and connects the event definitely with Christmas.
A tenth-century Arabian geographer relates how all the trees
of the forest stand in full bloom on the holy night. In the
thirteenth-century Vita of St. Hadwigis the story is told of
a cherry-tree. A fifteenth-century bishop of Bamberg tells
it of two apple-trees, and to apple-trees the miracle belongs,
in German folk-belief, to this day 2. In England the stories
of Christmas-flowering hawthorns or blackthorns are specific
and probably not altogether baseless 3. The belief found a

1 Tille, Y. and C. 174 ; D. IV. Oake in the New Forest. In Par-
256, and in F. L. iii. 166; Philpot, ham Park, in Suffolk (Mr. Bou-
164; Ashton, 189; Kempe, Loseley tele's), is a pretty ancient thorne,
MSS. 75. The earliest English that blossomes like that at Glaston-
mention is in 1789. bury; the people flock hitherto see

2 Tille, Y. and C. 170. it on Christmas day. But in the

3 Ibid. 172 ; Ashton, 105, quoting rode that leades from Worcester to
Aubrey, Natural Hist, of Wilts, Droitwiche is a black thorne hedge
' Mr. Anthony Hinton, one of the at Clayes, half a mile long or more,
officers of the Earle of Pembroke, that blossoms about Christmas-day
did inoculate, not long before the for a week or more together. Dr.
late civill warres (ten yeares or Ezerel Tong sayd that about
more), a bud of Glastonbury Thorne, Rumly-Marsh in Kent, are thornes
on a thorne, at his farm house, at naturally like that near Glaston-
Wilton, which blossoms at Christ- bury. The Soldiers did cutt downe
mas, as the other did. My mother that near Glastonbury : the stump
has had branches of them for a remaines.' Specimens are stillfound
flower-pott, several Christmasses, about Glastonbury of Crataegus
which I have seen. Elias Ashmole, oxyacantha praecox, a winter-
Esq., in his notes upon Theatrum flowering variety of hawthorn: some
Chymicum, saies that in the church- of the alleged slips from the Glas-
yard at Glastonbury grew a walnutt tonbury thorn appear, however, to
tree, that did putt out young leaves be Prunus communis, or black-
at Christmas, as doth the King's thorn. A writer in the Gentleman's

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS 253

special location at Glastonbury, where the famous thorn is
said by William of Malmesbury and other writers to have
budded from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, who there
ended his wanderings with the Holy Grail. Where winter-
flowering trees are not found, a custom sometimes exists of
putting a branch of cherry or of hawthorn in water some
weeks before Christmas in order that it may blossom and
serve as a substitute K

It may fairly be conjectured that at the winter, as at the
summer feast, the fertilization spirit, in the form of bush or
idol, was borne about the fields. The fifteenth-century writer,
Alsso, records the calendisationes of the god Bel in Bohemia,
suppressed by St. Adalbert 2. In modern England, a ' holly-
bough' or ' wesley-bob,' with or without an image or doll,
occasionally goes its rounds 3. But a definite lustration of the
bounds is rare 4, and, for the most part, the winter procession
either is merely riotous or else, like too many of the summer
processions themselves, has been converted, under the succes-
sive influence of the strenae and the cash nexus, into little
more than a quite. Thus children and the poor go ' souling '
for apples and ' soul-cakes ' on All Souls' day ; on November
5 they collect for the 'guy'; on November n in Germany,
if not in England, for St. Martin ; on St. Clement's day
(November 23) they go ' clemencing ' ; on St. Catherine's
(November 25) ' catherning.' Wheat is the coveted boon on
St. Thomas's day (December 21) or ' doling day,' and the
quite is variously known as ' thomasing,' ' mumping/ ' corn-
ing,' ' gooding,' ' hodening,' or ' hooding V Christmas brings

Magazine for 1753 reports that the for the idol, and the cry of ' Vele,
opponents of the ' New Style ' in- Vele,' for that of ' Bely, Bely.'
troduced in 1752 were encouraged s Ashton, 244; Dyer, 483 ; Ditch-
by the refusal of the thorns at field, 15. The dolls sometimes
Glastonbury and Quainton in Buck- represent the Virgin and Child,
inghamshire to flower before Old ' Wesley-bob ' and the alternative
Christmas day. A Somerset woman ' vessel-cup ' appear to be corrup-
told a writer in 3 N. Q. ix. 33 that tions of 'wassail.'
the buds of the thorns burst into * Cf., however, the Burghead
flower at midnight on Christmas ceremony (p. 256).
Eve, 'As they corned out, you could 6 Brand, i. 217 ; Burne- Jackson,
hear 'um haffer.' 381 ; Dyer, 405 ; Ditchfield, 25,
1 Tille, Y. and C. 175. 161; Northall, 216; Henderson,
* Usener, ii. 61. Alsso says that 66; Haddon, 476 ; Pfannenschmidt,
St. Adalbert substituted a crucifix 206. The N. E. D. plausibly ex-

254

FOLK DRAMA

'wassailing' with its bowl of lamb's-wool and its bobbing
apple, and this is repeated on New Year's day or eve 1.
The New Year quite is probably the most widespread and
popular of all. Ducange records it at Rome 2. In France it
is known as V Aguilaneufz, in Scotland and the north of
England as Hogmanay, terms in which the philologists meet
problems still unsolved 4. Other forms of the winter quite

plains ' gooding,' which seems to be
used of any of these quetes as 'wish-
ing good,' and ' hooding ' may be a
corruption of this.

1 Brand, i. I ; Dyer, 501 ; Ditch-
field, 42 ; Northall, 183. Skeat
derives wassail, M.E. wasseyl, ' a
health-drinking,' from N.E. was
heel, A.-S. wes hdl, ' be whole.'

2 Ducange, Gloss, s.v. Kalendae
Ianuarii, quoting Cerem. Rom. ad
calcem Cod. MS. eccl. Camerac.
' Hii sunt ludi Romani communes
in Kalendis Ianuarii. In vigilia
Kalendarum in sero surgunt pueri,
et portant scutum. Quidam eorum
est larvatus cum maza in collo ;
sibilando sonant timpanum, eunt
per domos, circumdant scutum, tim-
panum sonat, larva sibilat. Quo
ludo finito, accipiunt munus a do-
mino domus, secundum quod placet
ei. Sic faciunt per unamquamque
domum. Eo die de omnibus legu-
minibus comedunt. Mane autem
surgunt duo pueri ex illis, accipiunt
ramos olivae -et sal, et intrant per
domos, salutant domum : Gaudium
et laetitia sit in hac domo ; tot
filii, tot porcelli, tot agni, et de
omnibus bonis optant, et antequam
sol oriatur, comedunt vel favum
mellis, vel aliquid duke, ut totus
annus procedat eis dulcis, sine lite
et labore magno.'

3 Du Tilliot, 67, quoting J. B.
Thiers, Traill des jeux et des diver-
tissemens, 452 ; Midler, 103. There
are some Guillaneu songs in Bu-
jeaud, ii. 153. The quete was pro-
hibited by two synods of Angers
in 1595 and 1668.

4 Brand, i. 247 ; Dyer, 505 ;
Ditchfield, 44; Ashton,2i7; North-
all, 181 ,; Henderson, 76 ; Tille,
Y. and C. 204; Nicholson, Gol-

spie, 100; Rhys, in F. L. ii. 308.
Properly. speaking, ' Hogmanay' is
the gift of an oaten farl asked for
in the quete. It is also applied to
the day on which the quete takes
place, which is in Scotland generally
New Year's Eve. Besides the quete,
Hogmanay night, like Halloween
elsewhere, is the night for horse-play
and practical joking. The name
appears in many forms, ' Hogmana,'
' Hogomanay,' ' Nog-money' (Scot-
land), ' Hogmina ' (Cumberland),
1 Hagmena ' (Northumberland),
' Hagman heigh !' ' Hagman ha! '
(Yorkshire), 'Agganow' (Lanca-
shire), ' Hob dy naa,' ' Hob ju naa'
(Isle of Man). It is generally ac-
cepted as equivalent to the French
aguilanneuf, aguilanleu, guillaneu,
hagui men lo, hoquinano, &c, ad
infin., the earliest form being augui-
lanleu (1353). With the Scotch
' Hogmanay,
Trollolay,

Give us of your white bread and
none of your grey ' !
may be compared the French,
' Tire lire,

Maint de blanc, et point du bis.'
On no word has amateur philology
been more riotous. It has been
derived from ' au gui menez,' ' a
gui 1'an neuf,' 'au gueux menez,'
'Halig monath,' ayla ni]VT), ' Homme
est ne,' and the like. Tille thinks
that the whole of December was
formerly Hogmanay, and derives
from mondth and either * hoggva,
' hew,' hag, ' witch,' or hog, ' pig.'
Nicholson tries the other end, and
traces auguilanleu to the Spanish
aguinaldo or aguilando, ' a New
Year's gift.' This in turn he makes
the gerund of *aguilar, an assumed
corruption of alquilar, 'to hire one-

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS

255

will crop up presently, and the visits of the guisers with their
play or song, the carol singers and the waits may be expected
at any time during the Christmas season. As at the summer
quetes, some reminiscence of the primitive character of the
processions is to be found in the songs sung, with their wish
of prosperity to the liberal household and their ill-will to the
churl K

In the summer festivals both water-rites and fire-rites
frequently occur. In those of winter, water-rites are com-
paratively rare, as might naturally be expected at a season
when snow and ice prevail. There is some trace, however,
of a custom of drawing ' new ' water, as of making ' new ' fire,
for the new year2. Festival fires, on the other hand, are
widely distributed, and agree in general features -with those
of summer. Their relation to the fertility of crop and herd
is often plainly enough marked. They are perhaps most
familiar to-day in the comparatively modern form of the Guy
Fawkes celebration on November 53, but they are known

self out.' Hogmanay will thus mean
properly ' handsel ' or ' hiring-
money,' and the first Monday in
the New Year is actually called in
Scotland ' Handsel Monday.' This
is plausible, but, although no philo-
logist, I think a case might be made
out for regarding the terms as
corruptions of the Celtic Nos
Calan-gaeaf, ' the night of the winter
Calends ' (Rhys, 514). This is All
Saints' eve, while the Manx ' Hob
dy naa' quete is on Hollantide
(November 12 ; cf. p. 230).

1 A Gloucestershire wassail song

in Dixon, Ancient Poems, 199, ends,

' Come, butler, come bring us a

bowl of the best :

I hope your soul in heaven will

rest ;
But if you do bring us a bowl

of the small,

Then down fall butler, bowl

and all.'

a In Herefordshire and the south

of Scotland it is lucky to draw ' the

cream of the well ' or ' the flower

of the .well,' i.e. the first pail of

water after midnight on New Year's

eve (Dyer, 7, 17). In Germany

Heilwag similarly drawn at Christ-
mas is medicinal (Grimm, iv. 1810).
Pembroke folk sprinkle each other
on New Year's Day (F. L. iii.
263). St. Martin of Braga con-
demns amongst Kalends customs
' panem in fontem mittere (Appen-
dix N, No. xxiii), and this form of
well-cult survives at Christmas in
the Tyrol (Jahn, 283) and in France
(Miiller, 500). Tertullian chaffs
the custom of early bathing at
the Saturnalia (Appendix N, No.
ii). Gervase of Tilbury (ed. Lie-
brecht, ii. 12) mentions an Eng-
lish belief (ti2oo) in a wonder-
working Christmas dew. This
Tille (Y. and C. 168) thinks an
outgrowth from the Advent chant
ftorate coeli, but it seems closely
parallel to the folk belief in May-
dew.

3 Burne-Jackson, 388 ; Simpson,
202 ; F. L. v. 38 ; Dyer, 410. The
festival in its present form can only
date from the reign of James I, but
the Pope used to be burned in bon-
fires as early as 1570 upon the
accession day of Elizabeth, Nov. 17
(Dyer, 422).

256 FOLK DRAMA

also on St Crispin's day (October 25) \ Hallow e'en2, St.
Martin's day3, St. Thomas's day4, Christmas eve5, New
Year 6, and Twelfth night 7. An elaborate and typical ex-
ample is the ' burning of the clavie ' at the little fishing
village of Burghead on the Moray Firth 8. This takes place
on New Year's eve, or, according to another account 9, Christ-
mas eve (O.S.). Strangers to the village are excluded from
any share in the ritual. The ' clavie ' is a blazing tar-barrel
hoisted on a pole. In making it, a stone must be used instead
of a hammer, and must then be thrown away. Similarly, the
barrel must be lit with a blazing peat, and not with lucifer
matches. The bearers are honoured, and the bridegroom of
the year gets the ' first lift.' Should 3 bearer stumble, it
portends death to himself during the year and ill-luck to
the town. The procession passes round the boundaries of
Burghead, and formerly visited every boat in the harbour.
Then it is carried to the top of a hillock called the ' Doorie,'
down the sides of which it is finally rolled. Blazing brands
are used to kindle the house fires, and the embers are pre-
served as charms.

The central heathen rite of sacrifice has also left its
abundant traces upon winter custom. Bede records the
significant name of blot-monath, given to November by the
still unconverted Anglo-Saxons10. The tradition of solemn
slaughter hangs around both Martinmas and Christmas.
'Martlemas beef in England, St. Martin's swine; hens, and
geese in Germany, mark the former day11. At Christmas

1 Dyer, 389 (Sussex). small fires and one large one are
8 Brand, i. 210, 215 (Buchan, made out in the wheat-fields.
Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, North 8 Dyer, 507; Ashton, 218; Simp-
Wales), son, 205 ; Gomme, Brit. Ass. Rept.

• Pfannenschmidt, 207; Jahn, (1896), 631 ; F.L. /.vii. 12 ; Trans.
240. Soc. Antiq. Scot. x. 649.

* Ashton, 47 (Isle of Man, where 9 Simpson, 205, quoting Gordon
the day is called ' Fingan's Eve '). Cumming, From the Hebrides to

8 Jahn, 253. the Himalayas, i. 245.

6 F. L. xii. 349; W. Gregor, 10 Bede, D. T. R. c. 17: cf. the
Brit. Ass. Rept. (1896), 620 (Min- A.-S. passage quoted by Pfannen-
nigaff, Galloway; bones being saved schmidt, 495; Jahn, 252. Other
up for this fire) ; Gomme, Brit. Germanic names for the winter
Ass. Rept. (1896), 633 (Biggar, months are ' Schlachtmonat," Gor-
Lanarkshire). manaSa ' : cf. Weinhold, Die deut-

7 Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22 (Glou- schen Monatsnamen, 54.
cestershire, Herefordshire). Twelve u Jahn, 229 ; Tille, Y. and C.

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS 257

the outstanding victim seems to be the boar. Caput apri
defero : reddens laudem Domino, sings the taberdar at Queen's
College, Oxford, as the manciple bears in the boar's head to
the Christmas banquet. So it was sung in many another
mediaeval and Elizabethan hall *, while the gentlemen of the
Inner Temple broke their Christmas fast on ' brawn, mustard,
and malmsey 2,' and in the far-off Orkneys each householder
of Sandwick must slay his sow on St. Ignace's or ' Sow ' day,
December 1 7 3. The older mythologists, with the fear of
solstices before their eyes, are accustomed to connect the
Christmas boar with the light-god, Freyr4. If the cult of
any one divinity is alone concerned, the analogous use of the
pig in the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter would make
the earth-goddess a more probable guess5. A few more
recondite customs associated with particular winter anniver-
saries may be briefly named. St. Thomas's day is at Woking-
ham the day for bull-baiting6. On St. Stephen's day, both
in England and Germany, horses are let blood 7. On or about
Christmas, boys are accustomed to set on foot a hunt of
victims not ordinarily destined to such a fate 8 ; owls and
squirrels, and especially wrens, the last, be it noted,
creatures which at other times of the year a taboo protects.
The wren-hunt is found on various dates in France, England,
Ireland, and the Isle of Man, and is carried out with various
curious rituals. Often the body is borne in a quite, and in the
Isle of Man the quiteurs give a feather as an amulet in return
for hospitality. There are other examples of winter quites,
in which the representation of a sacrificial victim is carried
round9. 'Hoodening' in Kent and other parts of England

28, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206, 217, tant : id pro armis omnique tutela

228. securum deae cultorem etiam inter

1 Dyer, 456, 470, 474, 477 ; Ash- hostis praestat.'
ton, 171 ; Karl Blind, The Boar's 6 Dyer, 439.

Head Dinner at Oxford and an 7 Dyer, 492 ; Ashton, 204 ; Grimm,

Otd Teutonic Sun- God, in Saga iv. 18 16.

Book of Viking Club for 1895. 8 Dyer, 481 ; N. W. Thomas, in

2 Dyer, 473. F. L. xi. 250. Cf. ch. xvii for the
' Hampson, i. 82. hunt of a cat and a fox at the
* Gummere, G. 0. 433. 'grand Christmas' of the Inner
5 Tacitus, Germ. 45, of the Aestii, Temple.

' matrem deum venerantur. insigne 9 Dyer, 494, 497 ; Frazer, ii. 442 ;

superstitionis formas aprorum ges- Northall, 229.

CHAMBERS. I S

258 FOLK DRAMA

is accompanied by a horse's head or hobby-horse1. The
Welsh ' Mari Lwyd' is a similar feature2, while at Kingscote,
in Gloucestershire, the wassailers drink to a bull's head called
< the Broad V

The hobby-horse is an example of an apparently grotesque
element which is found widespread in folk-processions, and
which a previous chapter has traced to its ritual origin. The
man clad in a beast-skin is the worshipper putting himself by
personal contact under the influence and protection of the
sacrificed god. The rite is not a very salient one in modern
winter processions, although it has its examples, but its
historical importance is great. A glance at the ecclesiastical
denunciations of the Kalends collected in an appendix will
disclose numerous references to it. These are co-extensive
with the western area of the Kalends celebrations. In Italy,
in Gaul, in southern Germany, apparently also in Spain and
in England, men decked themselves for riot in the heads and
skins of cattle and the beasts of the chase, blackened their
faces or bedaubed them with filth, or wore masks fit to terrify
the demons themselves. The accounts of these proceedings
are naturally allusive rather than descriptive ; the fullest are
given by a certain Severian, whose locality and date are
unknown, but who may be conjectured to speak for Italy,
by Maximus of Turin and Chrysologus of Ravenna in the
fifth century, and by Caesarius of Aries in the beginning
of the sixth. Amongst the portenta denounced is a certain
cervulus, which lingers in the Penitentials right up to the
tenth century, and with which are sometimes associated
a vitula or iuvenca. Caesarius adds a hinnicala, and
St. Eadhelm, who is my only authority for the presence
of the cervulus in England, an ermulus. These seem to be
precisely of the nature of ' hobby-horses.' Men are said
cervulunt ambulare, cervulum facere, in cervulo vadere, and
Christians are forbidden to allow these portenta to come
before their houses. The Penitential of the Pseudo-Theodore
tells us that the performers were those who wore the skins

1 Ashton, 114 (Reculver) ; Dyer, 472 (Ramsgate) ; Ditchfield, 27
(Walmer), 28 (Cheshire : All Souls' day).

2 Dyer, 486. 8 Ditchfield, 28.

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS 259

and heads of beasts. Maximus of Turin, and several writers
after him, put the objection to the beast-mimicry of the
Kalends largely on the ground that man made in the image
of God must not transform himself into the image of a beast.
But it is clear that the real reason for condemning it was its
unforgettable connexion with heathen cult. Caesarius warns
the culprit that he is making himself into a sacrificium
daemonum, and the disguised reveller is more than once
spoken of as a living image of the heathen god or demon
itself. There is some confusion of thought here, and it must
be remembered that the initial significance of the skin-wearing
rite was probably buried in oblivion, both for those who
practised it and for those who reprobated. But it is obvious
that the worshipper wearing a sacrificial skin would bear
a close resemblance to the theriomorphic or semi-therio-
morphic image developed out of the sacrificial skin nailed
on a tree-trunk ; and it is impossible not to connect the
fact that in the prohibitions a cervulus or ' hobby-buck '
rather than a ' hobby-horse ' is prominent with the widespread
worship throughout the districts whence many of these notices
come of the mysterious stag-horned deity, the Cernunnos of
the Gaulish altars1. On the whole I incline to think that
at least amongst the Germano-Keltic peoples the agricultural
gods were not mimed in procession by human representatives.
It is true that in the mediaeval German processions which
sprang out of those of the Kalends St. Nicholas plays a part,
and that the presence of St. Nicholas may be thought to
imply that of some heathen precursor. It will, however, be
seen shortly that St. Nicholas may have got into these
processions through a different train of ideas, equally con-
nected with the Kalends, but not with the strictly agricultural
aspect of that festival. But of the continuity of the beast-
masks and other horrors of these Christmas processions with
those condemned in the prohibitions, there can be no doubt 2.
A few other survivals of the cervulus and its revel can be
traced in various parts of Europe3.

1 Bertrand, 314 ; Arbois de Ju- 2 Tille, D. W. 109.

bainville, Cycl. myth. 385; Rhys, s C. de Berger (1723), Commen-

C. H. 77. tatio de personis vulgo larvis sen

S 2

260 FOLK DRAMA

The sacrifices of cereals and of the juice of the vine or the
barley are exemplified, the one by the traditional furmenty,
plum-porridge, mince-pie, souling-cake, Yule-dough, Twelfth
night cake, pain de calende, and other forms of 'feasten'
cake 1 ; the other by the wassail-bowl with its bobbing
apple2. The summer 'youling ' or ' tree-wassailing ' is repeated
in the orchard3, and a curious Herefordshire custom represents
an extension of the same principle to the ox-byre4. A German
hen-yard custom requires mixed corn, for the familiar reason
that every kind of crop must be included in the sacrifice 5.

Human sacrifice has been preserved in the whipping of
boys on Innocents' day, because it could be turned into
the symbol of a Christian myth6. It is preserved also, as
throughout the summer, in the custom, Roman as well as
Germano-Keltic, of electing a mock or temporary king. Of
such the Epiphany king or ' king of the bean ' is, especially in
France, the best known7. Here again, the association with

mascharis, 218 'Vecolo aut cer-
volo facere ; hoc est sub forma
vitulae aut cervuli per plateas dis-
currere, ut apud nos in festis Bac-
chanalibus vulgo dicitur correr la
tora'; J. Ihre (11769), G/oss. Suio-'
Gothicum, s. v. Jul. ' Julbock est
ludicrum, quo tempore hoc pellem
et formam arietis induunt adoles-
centuli et ita adstantibus incursant.
Credo idem hoc esse quod exteri
scriptores cervulum appellant.' In
the Life of Bishop Ami (nat. 1237)
it is recorded how in his youth he
once joined in a scinnleic or ' hide-
play ' (C. P. B. ii. 385). Frazer, ii.
447, describes the New Year custom
of colhcinn in Scotland and St.
Kilda. A man clad in a cowhide
is driven deasil round each house
to bless it. Bits of hide are also
burnt for amulets. Probably the
favourite Christmas game of Blind
Man's Buff was originally a scinnleic
(N. W. Thomas, in F. L. xi. 262).

1 Brand, i. 210, 217; Jackson and
Burne, 381, 392, 407; Ashton, 178 ;
Jahn, 487, 500; MiiHer, 487, 500.
Scandinavian countries bake the
Christmas 'Yule-boar.' Often this
is made from the last sheaf and

the crumbs mixed with the seed-
corn (Frazer, ii. 29). Germany has
its Martinshorner (Jahn, 250 ;
Pfannenschmidt, 215).

2 Dyer, 501 ; Ashton, 214.

3 Brand, i. 19; Dyer, 21, 447;
Ashton, 86, 233. Brand, i. 210, de-
scribes a Hallow-e'en custom in the
Isle of Lewis of pouring a cup of
ale in the sea to ' Shony,' a sea god.

4 Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22, 448;
Northall, 187. A cake with a hole
in the middle is hung on the horn
of the leading ox.

5 Grimm, iv. 1808. Hens are
fed on New Year's day with mixed
corn to make them lay well.

6 Gregory, Posthwna, 113 'It
hath been a Custom, and yet is else-
where, to whip up the Children upon
Innocents-Day morning, that the
memory of this Murther might stick
the closer, and in a moderate pro-
portion to act over the cruelty again
in kind.' In Germany, adults are
beaten (Grimm, iv. 1820). In
mediaeval France ' innocenter,'
' donner les innocents,' was a cus-
tom exactly parallel to the Easter
prisio (Rigollot, 138, 173).

7 Dyer, 24 ; Cortet, 32 ; Frazer,

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS

261

the three kings or Magi has doubtless prolonged his sway.
But he is not unparalleled. The rex autumnalis of Bath is
perhaps a harvest rather than a beginning of winter king1.
But the shoemakers choose their King Crispin on October 25,
the day of their patron saints, Crispin and Crispinian ; on
St. Clement's (November 23) the Woolwich blacksmiths have
their King Clem, and the maidens of Peterborough and else-
where a queen on St. Catherine's (November 25). Tenby,
again, elects its Christmas mock mayor2. At York, the pro-
claiming of Yule by 'Yule ' and 'Yule's wife ' on St. Thomas's
day was once a notable pageant 3. At Norwich, the riding of
a ' kyng of Crestemesse ' was the occasion of a serious riot in
1443 4. These may be regarded as 'folk' versions of the

iii. 143 ; Deslyons, Traitfc contre
le Paganisme du Roi boit (2nd ed.
1670). The accounts of Edward II
record a gift to the rex fabae on
January 1, 1316 (Archaeologia,xxvi.
342). Payments to the ' King of
Bene ' and ' for furnissing his graith'
were made by James IV of Scot-
land between 1490 and 1503 (L. H.
T. Accounts, I. ccxliii ; II. xxiv,
xxxi, &c). The familiar mode of
choosing the king is thus described
at Mont St. Michel ' In vigilia
Epyphaniae ad prandium habeant
fratres gastellos et ponatur faba
in uno ; et frater qui inveniet
fabam, vocabitur rex et sedebit ad
magnam mensam, et scilicet sedebit
ad vesperas ad matutinam et ad
magnam missam in cathedra pa-
rata' (Gast£, 53). The pre-eminence
of the bean, largest of cereals, in
the mixed cereal cake (cf. ch. vi)
presents no great difficulty ; on the
religious significance attached to
it in South Europe, cf. W. W.
Fowler, 94, no, 130. Lady Jane
Grey was scornfully dubbed a
Twelfth - day queen by Noailles
(Froude, v. 206), just as the Bruce's
wife held her lord a summer king
(ch. viii).

1 Accts. of St. Michael's, Bath,
s. ann. 1487, 1490, 1492 (Somerset
Arch. Soc. Trans. 1878, 1879, 1883).
One entry is ' pro corona conducta
Regi Attumnali.' The learned edi-

tor explains this as ' a quest con-
ducted by the King's Attorney' !

2 Ashton, 119; Dyer, 388, 423,
427.

3 Brand, i. 261, prints from Le-
land, Itinerary (ed. 1769), iv. 182,
a description of the proclamation
of Youle by the sheriffs at the
' Youle-Girth ' and throughout the
city. In Davies, 270, is a letter from
Archbp. Grindal and other eccle-
siastical commissioners to the Lord
Mayor, dated November 13, 1572,
blaming 'a very rude and barba-
rouse custome maynteyned in this
citie and in no other citie or towne
of this realme to our knowledge,
that yerely upon St. Thomas day
before Christmas twoo disguysed
persons, called Yule and Yule's
wife, shoulde ryde throughe the
citie very undecently and uncome-
ly .. .' Hereupon the council sup-
pressed the riding. Drake, Ebora-
cum (1736), 217, says that originally
a friar rode backwards and ' painted
like a Jew.' He gives an historical
legend to account for the origin of
the custom. Religious interludes
were played on the same day :
cf. Representations. The ' Yule ' of
York was perhaps less a ' king '
than a symbolical personage like
the modern ' Old Father Christ-
mas.'

4 Ramsay, Y. and L. ii. 52 ;
Blomefield, Hist, of Norfolk, iii.

.'262 FOLK DRAMA

mock king. Others, in which the folk were less concerned,
will be the subject of chapters to follow.

Before passing to a fresh group of Christmas customs,
I must note the presence of one more bit of ritual closely-
related to sacrificial survivals. That is, the man masquerad-
ing in woman's clothes, in whom we have found a last faint
reminiscence of the once exclusive supremacy of women in
the conduct of agricultural worship. At Rome, musicians
dressed as women paraded the city, not on the Kalends, but
on the Ides of January 1. The Fathers, however, know such
disguising as a Kalends custom, and a condemnation of it
often accompanies that of beast-mimicry, from the fourth to
the eighth century 2.

The winter festival is thus, like the summer festivals,
a moment in the cycle of agricultural ritual, and is therefore
shared in by the whole village in common. It is also, and
from the time of the institution of harvest perhaps pre-
eminently, a festival of the family and the homestead. This
side of it finds various manifestations. There is the solemn
renewal of the undying fire upon the hearth, the central
symbol and almost condition of the existence of the family
as such. This survives in the institution of the ' Yule-losr,'
which throughout the Germano-Keltic area is lighted on
Christmas or more rarely New Year's eve, and must burn,

149. The riot was against the should end with the twelve monethes

Abbot of St. Benet's Holm, and of the yere, aforn hym yche moneth

the monks declared that one John disguysed after the seson requiryd,

Gladman was set up as a king, an and Lenton clad in whyte and red

act of treason against Henry VI. heryngs skinns, and his hors trapped

The city was fined 1,000 marks, with oystyr-shells after him, in

In 1448 they set forth their wrongs token that sadnesse shuld folowe,

in a ' Bill' and explained that Glad- and an holy tyme, and so rode in

man ' who was ever, and at thys diverse stretis of the cite, with other

our is, a man of sad disposition, people, with hym disguysed makyng

and trewe and feythfull to God and myrth, disportes and plays.'

to the Kyng, of disporte as hath * Jevons, Plutarch's Romane

ben acustomed in ony cite or Questions, 86. The Ides (Jan. 9)

burgh thorowe alle this realme, on must have practically been in-

Tuesday in the last ende of Criste- eluded in the Kalends festival,

messe, viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, The Agonium, probably a sacrifice

made a disport with hys neygh- to Janus, was on that day (W. W.

bours, havyng his hors trappyd Fowler, 282).

with tynnsoyle and other nyse dis- 2 Appendix N, Nos. ix, xi, xiv,

gisy things, coronned as kyng of xvii, xviii, xxviii, xxxvi.
Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS 263

as local custom may exact, either until midnight, or for three
days, or during the whole of the Twelve-night period, from
Christmas to Epiphany \ Dr. Tille, intent on magnifying
the Roman element in western winter customs, denies any
Germano-Keltic origin to the Christmas blaze, and traces it
to the Roman practice of hanging lamps upon the house-
doors during the Saturnalia and the Kalends2. It is true
that the Yule-log is sometimes supplemented or even replaced
by the Christmas candle 3, but I do not think that there can
be any doubt which is the primitive form of rite. And the
Yule-log enters closely into the Germano-Keltic scheme of
festival ideas. The preservation of its brands or ashes to be
placed in the mangers or mingled with the seed-corn suggests
many and familiar analogies. Moreover, it is essentially con-
nected with the festival fire of the village, from which it is
still sometimes, and once no doubt was invariably, lit, afford-
ing thus an exact parallel to the Germano-Keltic practice on
the occasion of summer festival fires, or of those built to stay
an epidemic.

Another aspect of the domestic character of the winter
festival is to be found in the prominent part which children
take in it. As queteurs, they have no doubt gradually
replaced the elder folk, during the process through which,
even within the historical purview, ritual has been trans-
formed into play. But St. Nicholas, the chief mythical figure
of the festival, is their patron saint ; for their benefit especially,
the strenae or Christmas and New Year's gifts are main-
tained ; and in one or two places it is their privilege, on some
fixed day during the season, to ' bar out ' their parents or
masters 4.

Thirdly, the winter festival included a commemoration of

1 G. L. Gomme, in Brit. Ass. Rep. No. xxxviii) forbids a Christmas
(1896), 616 sqq. ; Tille, D. W. II, candle to be burnt beneath the
Y. and C. 90 ; Jahn, 253 ; Dyer, kneading-trough.

446,466; Ashton, 76, 219 ; Grimm, 4 Miiller, 236; Dyer, 430; Ashton,

iv. 1793, 1798, 1812, 1826, 1839, 54; Rigollot, 173; Records of

1841 ; Bertrand, in, 404; Miiller, Aberdeen (Spalding Club), ii. 39,

47&- 45, 66. In Belgium the household

2 Tille, Y. and C. 95. keys are entrusted to the youngest
s Dyer, 456; Ashton, 125, 188. child on Innocents' day (Durr,

A Lombard Capitulary (App. N, 73).

264 FOLK DRAMA

ancestors. It was a feast, not only of riotous life, but of
the dead. For, to the thinking of the Germano-Keltic
peoples, the dead kinsmen were not altogether outside the
range of human fellowship. They shared with the living in
banquets upon the tomb. They could even at times return
to the visible world and hover round the familiar precincts of
their own domestic hearth. The Germans, at least, heard
them in the gusts of the storm, and imagined for them a
leader who became Odin. From another point of view they
were naturally regarded as under the keeping of earth, and
the earth-mother, in one aspect a goddess of fertility, was in
another the goddess of the dead. As such she was worshipped
under various names and forms, amongst others in the triad
of the Matres or Matronae. In mediaeval superstition she
is represented by Frau Perchte, Frau Holda and similar
personages, by Diana, by Herodias, by St. Gertrude, just as
the functions of Odin are transferred to St. Martin, St.
Nicholas,' St. John, Hellequin. It was not unnatural that
the return of the spirits, in the ' wild hunt ' or otherwise, to
earth should be held to take place especially at the two
primitive festivals which respectively began the winter and
the summer. Of the summer or spring commemoration but
scant traces are to be recovered * ; that of winter survives, in
a dislocated form, in more than one important anniversary.
Its observances have been transferred with those of the
agricultural side of the feast to the Gemeinwoche of harvest 2 ;

1 Saupe, 9; Tille, Y.andC. 118 ; to either Feb. 21 (Feralia) or Feb.

Duchesne, 267. A custom of feast- 22 (Cara Cognatio) : cf. Fowler,

ing on the tombs of the dead on 306. The ' cibi ' mentioned by the

the day of St. Peter de Cathedra council of Tours seem to have been

(Feb. 22) is condemned by the offered in the house, like the winter

Council of Tours (567), c. 23 offerings described below ; but there

(Maassen, i. 133) 'sunt etiam qui is also evidence for similar Germano-

in festivitate cathedrae domui Petri Keltic offerings on the tomb or

apostoli cibos mortuis offerunt, et howe itself ; and these were often

post missas redeuntes ad domos accompanied by dadsisas or dirges ;

proprias, ad gentilium revertuntur cf. Saupe, Indiculus, 5-9. Saupe

errores, et post corpus Domini, considers the spurcalia in Febru-

sacratas daemoni escas accipiunt.' ario, explained above (p. 114) as

1 do not doubt that the Germano- a ploughing rite, to be funereal.

Keltic tribes had their spring 2 Pfannenschmidt, 123, 165, 435 ;

Todtenfest, but the date Feb. 22 Saupe, 9 ; Golther, 586 ; C. P. B.

seems determined by the Roman i. 43 ; Jahn, 251. The chronicler

Parentalia extending from Feb. 13 Widukind, Res gestae Sax. (Pertz,

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS 265

but they are also retained, at or about their original date, on
All Saints' and All Souls' days * ; and, as I proceed to show,
they form a marked and interesting part of the Christmas
and New Year ritual. I do not, indeed, agree with Dr. Mogk,
who thinks that the Germans held their primitive feast of the
dead in the blackest time of winter, for it seems to me more
economical to suppose that the observances in question have
been shifted like others from November to the Kalends. But I
still less share the view of Dr. Tille, who denies that any relics of
a feast of the dead can be traced in the Christmas season at all2.
Bede makes the statement that the heathen Anglo-Saxons
gave to the eve of the Nativity the name of Modranicht or
1 night of mothers,' and in it practised certain ceremonies 3.
It is a difficult passage, but the most plausible of various
explanations seems to be that which identifies these cere-
monies with the cult of those Matres or Malronae, corre-
sponding with the Scandinavian disar, whom we seem justified
in regarding as guardians and representatives of the dead.
Nor is there any particular difficulty in guessing at the nature
of the ceremonies referred to. Amongst all peoples the cult
of the dead consists in feeding them ; and there is a long
catena of evidence for the persistent survival in the Germano-
Keltic area of a Christmas and New Year custom closely
parallel to the alfablot and disablot of the northern jid. When
the household went to bed after the New Year revel, a portion
of the banquet was left spread upon the table in the firm
belief that during the night the ancestral spirits and their
leaders would come and partake thereof. The practice,
which was also known on the Mediterranean, does not escape

Mon. SS. iii. 423), describes a rites from November. For the

Saxon three-days' feast in honour mediaeval Gemeinwoche, beginning

of a victory over the Thuringi in on the Sunday after Michaelmas,

534. He adds 'acta sunt autem was common to Germany, and not

haec omnia, ut maiorum memoria confined to Saxony. Michaelmas,

prodit, die Kal. Octobris, qui dies the feast of angels, known at Rome

erroris, religiosorum sanctione viro- in the sixth century, and in Germany

rum mutati sunt in ieiunia et ora- by the ninth, also adapts itself to

tiones, oblationes quoque omnium the notion of a Todtenfest.

nos praecedentium christianorum.' J Pfannenschmidt, 168, 443.

This is probably a myth to account 2 Mogk, in Paul, iii. 260; Tille,

for the harvest Todtenfest, which Y.andC.loj.

may more naturally be thought of 3 Cf. p. 231.
as transferred with the agricultural

266 FOLK DRAMA

the animadversion of the ecclesiastical prohibitions. The
earlier writers who speak of it, Jerome, Caesarius, Eligius,
Boniface, Zacharias, the author of the Homilia de Sacrilegiis,
if they give any explanation at all, treat it as a kind of
charm1. The laden table, like the human over-eating and over-
drinking, is to prognosticate or cause a year of plentiful fare.
The preachers were more anxious to eradicate heathenism
than to study its antiquities. Burchardus, however, had a
touch of the anthropologist, and Burchardus says definitely
that food, drink, and three knives were laid on the Kalends
table for the three Parcae, figures of Roman mythology with
whom the western Matres or ' weird sisters ' were identified 2.
Mediaeval notices confirm the statement of Burchardus.
Martin of Amberg 3, the Thesaurus Pauperum 4 and the
Kloster Scheyern manuscript5 make the recipient of the
bounty Frau Perchte. In Alsso's Largum Sero it is for
the heathen gods or demons 6 ; in Dives and Pauper for
' Atholde or GobelynV In modern survivals it is still often
Frau Perchte or the Perchten or Persteln for whom fragments
of food are left ; in other cases the custom has taken on
a Christian colouring, and the ancestors' bit becomes the
portion of le bon Dieu or the Virgin or Christ or the Magi,
and is actually given to queteurs or the poor 8.

1 Appendix N, Nos. xii, xvii, . . . ut inde sint eis propitii ad pro-
xxvii, xxxiii, xxxv, xxxix. speritatem domus et negotiorum

2 Appendix N, No. xlii. rerum temporalium.'

3 Martin of Amberg, Gewissens- 6 Usener, ii. 84 ' Qui preparant
Spiegel (thirteenth century, quoted mensam dominaePerthae' (fifteenth
Jahn, 282), the food and drink century). Schmeller, Bairisck.
are left for ' Percht mit der eisnen Worterb. i. 270, gives other refer-
nasen.' ences for Perchte in this connexion.

4 Thes. Patcp. s. v. Superstitio 6 Usener, ii. 58.

(fifteenth

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